Members of Local 204 used stickers, lunch time meetings, vocal chords, and a final-day march to the front office to achieve a three-year contract the committee could unanimously recommend, and the members would overwhelmingly ratify. Management at Haskon knew that to go beyond the August 6 expiration date would leave production completely in hands of the members without the “no work stoppage” clause of the contract being in effect. Once the expiration date rolls around, bosses are never quite sure what Local 204 has in store for them.
After the first shift’s walk to the front office, the company took over seven hours to return to the table with their last, best and final offer. After receiving this late-evening proposal, the UE negotiating committee took a break, gathered input from second shift workers on the job, and responded to the company with a proposal for slightly more money and with the first raise in August rather than next January 1 as the company proposed. After another four-hour caucus, the company finally agreed to these changes.
“From one to ten, I’d give this contract a seven” said Chief Steward John Vasconcelos. “Most everybody’s satisfied. People came over to thank the committee and shook our hands. It’s one of our better contracts.”
Wage increases average more than 3.7 percent each year: 2 percent, 3.6 percent and 3.6 percent (paid each year in August) plus and another 2 percent in January 2011. The average first shift wage increases $1.76 over the three years, from $15.12 to $16.88.
Healthcare payroll deductions increase by 18 cents an hour in January 2009, another 12 cents in January 2010, and 13 cents in January 2011. Drug co-pays increase $5 in each of the last two tiers to $20/$40; the co-pay for generics remains at $5. The rest of the Harvard Pilgrim HMO plan stays the same for the life of the agreement.
A TRADITION OF STRUGGLE
Haskon has been in Taunton for 80 years and its workers have been members of UE Local 204 for 60 of those years. The workers who started the local organized what was then a GE plastics plant and largest plastic manufacturing plant in the world in the early ‘40’s. Local 204 defeated two raids by a rival union in the 1950s, and stopped the attempts by British Tyre and Rubber (BTR) to destroy the union and wreck the business in the early ‘90s.
After BTR closed the plant for three months and secretly took $1 million from the pension fund, the plant was sold. In one 24-hour bargaining session, the local reached agreement with the new owner to reopen Haskon, but that contract took substantial wage and benefit concessions from workers. The local has spend a decade rebuilding from the damage caused by BTR. But the members have never backed down from a challenge and stuck together whenever necessary.
“Yeah. Definitely the membership actions got us a better agreement. It’s always been that way. When the plant closed we fought to get our jobs back, and the membership did it. It’s taken us over ten years to get back what we agreed to give up back then,” said Local 204 President Pauline Arguin.
The Local 204 negotiating committee consisted of Pres. Pauline Arguin, Chief Steward John Vasconcelos, Vice Pres. Maria “Eduarda” De Sousa, Recording Secretary Lance Scibetta, Kenny Richards, Rich Reynolds, and Rudy Tapia. They were assisted by UE Northeast Region President Peter Knowlton.