On the Picket Line

Eaton Aerospace workers keep up strike over pay, pensions

By Naomi Craine
November 18, 2024

JACKSON, Mich. — The 525 members of United Auto Workers Local 475 remain on the picket line at Eaton Aerospace here, after rejecting a second contract proposal more than a month into their strike. “The new pay offer was only half a percent different. They just moved some numbers around,” striker Erik Palmer told this Militant  worker-correspondent Oct. 28. “They were just trying to see if we’d crack.” 

“Their insurance policy is substandard,” added his co-worker, Joe Fish. 

The UAW members walked out Sept. 16, setting up around-the-clock picketing. The main issues include wages, insurance costs and the company’s demand to end the defined benefit pension plan and replace it with a 401(k) that would put benefits at the whims of the stock market. “The main reason I took this job was it offered a pension,” Palmer said. 

“A lot of local unions have come out to support us,” said shop steward Ken Brown. Eaton has operations around the world and makes components for electrical, aerospace and other industries. Workers at the Jackson plant assemble hoses for civil, commercial and military aircraft, including for Boeing. 

“The union has our last, best and final offer,” the company told Fox News Nov. 1. While saying it is willing to continue talking with the union, “at this time, we are focused on hiring permanent replacement workers.” 

Some 400 members of the International Association of Machinists Local 660 at the company’s B-Line plants in Highland and Troy, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, struck Oct. 21.

A union statement summed up their issues: “insufficient wages to keep pace with inflation and industry standards, high health insurance costs, no improvements to work-life balance, and substandard retirement security. 

“IAM members at Eaton are currently forced to work six-day workweeks. The company is also seeking to turn a 30-minute break into two 15-minute breaks, leaving little time to have a meal. Management also wants to eliminate two 10-minute breaks per shift.” 

Meanwhile, members of the Unite union at an Eaton plant in Fareham, Hampshire, in the United Kingdom, have held a series of work stoppages, also over pay.