Vol. 81/No. 6 February 13, 2017
Spirits high as Honeywell lockout enters eighth month
The lockout began May 9 after workers voted down a union-busting contract that would drastically increase health care costs, tear up work schedules and ignore job classifications. When the locked-out workers’ unemployment compensation ran out in November, Honeywell thought they would fold and presented them with a new, but similar, concession contract offer. Workers overwhelmingly rejected it.
Beduhn and Tom Simpson were on picket duty when Socialist Workers Party members from Chicago came to extend solidarity Jan. 29. “They want to get rid of our pensions and replace them with a 401(k),” Beduhn said. “We should have stopped them in 2011, when they took away the pensions for new hires. Now they want to take them away from everyone.”
Several workers were at the union hall distributing groceries from the union’s food pantry to locked-out members and their families.
“We do everything from setting up the food bank to unloading the trucks, to carrying the food down the stairs,” said Brenda Cochran, chairperson of the Community Service Committee. The food bank operates through contributions from other unions and discounts negotiated with local merchants.
“We’ve gotten close to $40,000 in donations since we started in September,” Cochran said. “We open the pantry every two weeks. So far today 50 families have come in to pick up groceries.”
Cheri Northcutt, who works at the plant, and her husband Willis, a retired UAW member, were helping out. “This isn’t just for me, but for the whole working class,” he said.
The workers are planning a solidarity rally for Feb. 11 at the UAW Local 5 hall here. “It’s a ‘Return to our Roots’ rally,” said Rob Williams, Local 9’s financial secretary. “This is the 80th anniversary of a six-day sit-down strike at our plant, then owned by Bendix Corporation, and of the 44-day sit-down strike by auto workers in Flint, Michigan.
“These strikes built our union, and we’re still fighting today,” he said. “All unions and supporters are invited. We’ll have speakers, hot dogs and a rally at the picket line.”
Meanwhile, contracts covering 1,000 members of the Teamsters union at four Minnesota Honeywell plants expire Jan. 31. Members of Teamsters Local 1145 there voted down Honeywell’s similar cutback contract offer Dec. 31 and authorized a strike.
Local 1145 Treasurer Dave Hedberg told the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the Honeywell lockout of the UAW workers here and in Green Island, New York. Honeywell has already brought in about 200 replacement workers from an engineering firm in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, so they can take over the jobs of unionists if they get locked out.
Contributions can be sent to UAW Local 9, 740 S. Michigan St., South Bend, IN 46601.
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