Harley strike touches entire community

Workers are braced for a long walkout.
BALTIMORE SUN
YORK, Pa. -- Mention Harley-Davidson in these parts, and you hear pride and envy from the people of this city and region.
Pride that Harley's mammoth factory here has a big part in making one of America's most iconic products. Envy that the workers who assemble the company's most popular motorcycles here have such a good deal.
Now a plant-wide strike has brewed a sense of resentment among some in this community, who see greed among the workers who already have good salaries and generous pension and health-care benefits. They worry the strike could cost York the factory and so many good jobs.
In turn, Harley workers and many supporters say corporate greed is at the heart of this labor dispute and they just want what's fair for current and future employees.
Not only has the strike -- which heads into its second week -- disrupted the lives of some 2,800 Harley union workers, but it has had rippling effects on other manufacturing jobs in the region and on communities as far away as Wisconsin.
The Milwaukee-based company Monday temporarily laid off 440 employees at plants in the state's north central and southeast regions, where motorcycle parts such as engines are made. And at least three York County-based suppliers have laid off workers because of the plant shutdown.
Remember CAT
With Harley workers saying they will strike as long as it takes to win a fair contract, many townspeople are uttering a two-word refrain: Remember CAT. As in Caterpillar, the heavy equipment maker that pulled out of town after nationwide strikes more than a decade ago and took more than 1,000 jobs with it.
"When we were growing up, CAT was the big company. When CAT left, Harley took over," said Deb Downs, 50, a stay-at-home mother, who with her husband, Mark, a teacher's assistant, grew up in York. "They should think about it -- companies have [left]. That could easily happen to Harley because they have other plants."
The fact that residents here have hung onto the memories of Caterpillar is a reminder of the community's manufacturing traditions and fears of worse-case scenarios when labor disputes turn nasty. There have been no real threats that Harley would close the York plant, but that hasn't stopped some residents from worrying about its future given the recent animosity between workers and management.
While Harley workers are receiving some community support, unions do not have the same kind of backing they once enjoyed. Union membership has declined, and a growing number of workers have been forced to contribute more for health-care benefits and to shoulder greater responsibility for their retirement savings.
Harley workers reject comparisons to Caterpillar, whose workers represented by the United Auto Workers demanded more while the company was struggling financially. Workers here say they're not asking for more but fighting cuts in their pension and health-care benefits as well as a two-tier pay system that would divide workers.
The company's three-year contract proposal, which was rejected by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 175, included a 4 percent raise each year. But 2 percent of the salary increase was contingent on employees agreeing to a new health-care plan that could require some to pay more medical costs. Union workers currently pay no health insurance premiums.
The proposal also would have paid new assembly workers 18.75 an hour compared with 20.78 for current workers in the first year of the contract.