EVENDALE, Ohio — “We are more unified now than ever. We’re getting union and community support. Last week Sean O’Brien, international president of the Teamsters union, joined our picket line,” Don Luknis, second shift safety committee person of United Auto Workers Local 647, told the Militant at the union hall Sept. 6. More than 600 members of the local went on strike against General Electric Aerospace here and in Erlanger, Kentucky, Aug. 28.
The major issue is the cost of health insurance, which has increased 36% since 2021. Other key issues include job security and paid time off. Negotiations are scheduled to resume Sept. 9.
“We shocked the hell out of GE by going out. We had prepared to strike for months,” Luknis said. “We wore red shirts in the plant on Wednesdays to honor Gerry Horgan, the chief steward of Communications Workers of America Local 1103. He was killed by a scab driving through their picket line in the 1989 strike against NYNEX in New York.” That strike was also over workers’ health care.
GE is “proposing a wage increase that is less than its health care proposal. On our schedules, I have a co-worker forced to work during chemotherapy treatments for colon cancer because he ran out of days off,” he said.
Members of International Association of Machinists Local 912 work on maintenance in the Evendale plant and just won their own contract fight. They’ve been refusing to work in solidarity since the UAW strike began. But Sept. 5 they announced the company told them they had to come back to work or face termination. They’ve vowed they will do no UAW production work and will continue to actively support the strike.
Local 647 issued a statement thanking the IAM members for honoring their picket line as long as they could.