Honeywell Locks Out USW Local Over Health Care
Sister Local in Canada Wins Contract

By Kay Tillow
Posted 8-29-10:  http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/68146

On June 28, 2010, Honeywell locked out the 230 union workers at its
uranium hexafluoride plant in Metropolis, an Ohio River town of 6,500 at
the tip of southern Illinois 400 miles south of Chicago.  A working class
town nestled amidst the corn, soybean and wheat fields, Metropolis is
known for its Superman statue on the court house square where most
Illinois candidates, including Barack Obama, have stopped by for a photo
op.

Honeywell didn't care if the workers liked their health care plan.  This
corporation said it was not going to let them keep it.  The members of
United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 refused to accept the company
proposal to increase workers out of pocket health care maximum to $8,500
a year and to end retiree health coverage.  The union proposed to continue
working as they bargained.  Honeywell said no and locked the doors.

This is not a newly organized plant--the union has had contracts for 50
years.  The Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers issued the local its charter
on May Day in 1959 and as a result of mergers the local became part of the
USW in 2004.

USW 7-669's sister local in Canada signed their current contract in July
2010, and health care coverage did not present a problem.  "Bargaining was
not particularly difficult this time around," said Chris Leavitt,
President of USW Local 13173 in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, home of the
Cameco plant, the only other one in North America to make the uranium
hexafluoride used to produce nuclear energy.  Canadian USW Local 13173 is
about the same size as the Metropolis local and was a part of District 50
of the United Mine Workers which affiliated with the USW.

Everyone is covered under the Ontario Health Insurance
Planautomatically--as a part of Canada's Medicare, a single payer plan,
explains Leavitt.  Members of Local 13173 and their families pay
nothing -- no premium, no co-pay, no co-insurance, no deductible--for
hospital care plus medication, out patient services, doctor's visits, and
other doctors' services such as surgery.  Health care is publicly funded
for everyone so unions can use their bargaining power to negotiate for
wages and other benefits.

President Leavitt said this Canadian health plan makes it a lot better for
unions.  With the basics covered, the unions negotiate only for the
extras.  Leavitt said his local has bargained for the company to cover the
total cost of premiums for the additions--the difference in cost for a
private hospital room, private nurses, massage and speech therapy,
prescription drugs, family dental including orthodontics, and vision care
including glasses or contact lenses.  Members of the Canadian USW Local
pay only $20 per year for family dental, $10 per year for an individual.

Leavitt has been president of his local for four years and a union member
for 32 years.  He says union is a family tradition--his 23 year old son
recently organized a union at his place of work.  Leavitt expresses pride
in his nation's health care achievements and in Tommy Douglas, the Father
of Canadas Medicare, but said Canadian unions face other problems similar
to those of workers in the US.  He condemned the current Canadian "right
wing government" for its job-destroying free trade pacts and its efforts
to privatize.

Back in Metropolis workers have an even more sobering reason to fight for
health care benefits for retirees.  It's not kryptonite that threatens the
workers and the community, but the chemicals they work with.  Local 7-669
President Darrell Lillie says, "What we do is a very, very dangerous job.
We deal with the worse acids known to man."

Directly in front of the Honeywell plant the local has erected a field of
crosses, 42 in memory of their members who have died from cancer and 27
smaller crosses to represent workers who have cancer but are surviving.
John Paul Smith, media spokesperson for the Metropolis local, said that
the dangers that workers have been exposed to are acknowledged by the
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program that has
designated the Metropolis plant as one where workers are eligible for
special benefits if they contract certain types of cancer.  "We are
working to expand the types of cancer that are covered by this program so
that more of our members could get help," said Smith.  In the meantime the
workers walk the line to keep health coverage for retirees in the
contract.

Smith says the local keeps track of their members and retirees and has
counted the cancer victims from their personal knowledge of each other in
this small community where everybody knows everybody.  The local has a
list of about 250 retirees.

Honeywell denies that the cancer deaths are caused by exposures in the
plant.  Honeywell said the same thing about its Bannister Federal Complex
in south Kansas City where workers handled beryllium and other carcinogens
with their bare hands uninformed of the consequences.  Many of those
workers now suffer from cancer, leukemia and other aftereffects, and, so
far, 643 Kansas City Honeywell workers have sought compensation under the
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program which has paid on 172 of
their claims.

Smith reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not yet
authorized the untrained replacement workers to make uranium hexafluoride.
Metropolis citizens are praying that Honeywell won't try to make UF6
until the skilled workers are back on the job.  Jerry Baird who owns
Diamond Lil's Restaurant just up the road from Honeywell says that if the
untrained recruits try to start it up and forget what to do, "They'll
probably kill us all."  Baird expresses his solidarity with the union by
generously supplying the pickets with barbeque and lemonade.

Despite the heat (over 90 degrees for a month and sometimes over 100 with
the heat index rising as high as 115), the workers keep a constant vigil
at the two gates on highway 45.  The Laborers' Union has donated their
giant inflated rat.  In a time of almost 10% unemployment and a sagging
economy in which many unions have been forced into painful concessions,
the members of USW Local 7-669 are in good spirits and standing strong.
In addition to slashing health care, Honeywell also wants to do away with
pensions for new hires, so the union fights in solidarity with the young
and the senior, certain of the justice of their cause.

"Support USW 7-669 signs dot the yards and stores of Metropolis.  Over
3,000 marched in the streets then rallied with the local on August 7.
Unions came from Gary, Granite City, all across western Kentucky and
Tennessee and southern Illinois.  USW Local 15009 from Marion was out in
force and expressed their support in song, Im union and I stand and no
companys demand will make me fall and I will not crawl.  The union is the
key to make working people free and I wont back down and lose my ground."

"Wow," said President Darrell Lillie, facing the August 7 crowd and
obviously touched by the enormity of the support.  "This turnout is
unbelievable.  It's bigger than we ever dreamed of."

The New York Times gave the lockout almost a full page including a picture
of the crosses.  The St. Louis Post Dispatch has covered the story and so
has the AFL-CIO website.  There is plenty of food and ice water on the
picket line, and, because it is a lock out, workers were able to win
unemployment compensation.

Cross border help is coming too.  Canadian USW President Chris Leavitt is
bringing a group from Port Hope to Metropolis on September 12.  They'll be
there for four days and three nights to be on the picket line and express
their solidarity.  There will be a lot to talk about.

Local 7-669 intends to win this battle.

Contributions are welcome.  Make checks payable to USW Local 7-669, PO Box
601, Metropolis, Illinois 62960.  Email:  [log in to unmask]


Distributed by:

All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217

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