NEW CASTLE Strike ends at Universal-Rundle
All lawsuits will be dropped under the contract agreement.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Workers at the Universal-Rundle plant headed back to work this morning after a 64-day strike.
"This is our Christmas present. I tried to promise everyone we'd get it done before Christmas and it was a nice present for them," said Ed Erhardt, president of Local 365 of the Glass Molders, Pottery, Plastics & amp; Allied Workers International Union.
Universal-Rundle is a division of Crane Plumbing and manufactures prefabricated showers and bathtubs.
Workers walked off the job Oct. 15 over wages and benefits and have been in court with the company since picketing began over restraining orders and other disputes.
Erhardt said both sides agreed to drop all lawsuits when they came to a contract agreement. Talks were held Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
About the agreement
The four-year deal gives workers 10-cent-per-hour raises in the first three years and a 15-cent-per-hour raise in the last year of the contract, he said. They also upgraded health care coverage and are providing workers with a discounted prescription drug card, something they didn't have before, he said.
"It's not a super contract, but they didn't take anything away," Erhardt said.
Reed Biedler, Crane Plumbing president, said he was happy the strike has ended. Workers in two other plans in Iowa and Georgia had also walked off the job Oct. 15. The Georgia employees went back to work after about a week after the strike started. The Iowa workers will return to work today, he said.
Biedler said he could not go into the details of the contract, but he said the strike did disrupt the company's production.
"We continued to operate somewhat at a reduced rate through the strike. We also sold or liquidated a fair amount of inventory. It was certainly not business as usual," he said.
Making up backlog
Erhardt said the union was informed that the New Castle plant is 5,600 orders behind. All 105 union members will be given their jobs back and start a six-day work week to make up the backlog of orders, he said.
Replacement workers brought in during the strike will also continue working and must join the union if they remain on the job, he said.
Erhardt noted that all union members will retain seniority and those brought in as replacements will be placed at the bottom of the seniority list.
Sandy Genareo of New Castle, the local union's secretary, said she was happy to go back to work today in her position repairing defects on any of the units produced in the plant.
"We are just so thankful that they didn't break the union. We stuck together and did get our jobs back," she said.