Labor & Employment Law

Cross-Border Solidarity in Honeywell Lockout

By Berry Craig

Canadian USW Local 13173 President Chris Leavitt with locked-out Honeywell workers Bruce George, Brad Dunningan, Butch Bray and Nancy Hogancamp.

It was 8 p.m. local time when the four Canadian steelworkers finally rolled into Metropolis, Ill.

They had been on the road for 15 hours, driving 930 miles from Port Hope, Ontario, to show solidarity with United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669, which has been locked out since June at a Honeywell plant that processes uranium for use in nuclear fuel.

Honeywell locked out the more than 225 workers after the union rejected a contract offer from the company that would eliminate 45 jobs, seniority, overtime pay, pensions and retiree medical benefits, according to Darrell Lillie, Local 7-669 president. The company is trying to run the plant with scabs, some from as far away as Louisiana (see below).

There was no rest for the weary wayfarers, according to Chris Leavitt, the group leader. He’s president of USW Local 13173 at the Cameco Corp. plant at Port Hope on Lake Ontario. The Cameco and Honeywell plants make the same product. Said Leavitt:

We wanted to spend as much time on the line as we could. So we checked into our hotel, called home to tell our families we made it and went right out to the line.

Check out this parade of community support for the locked-out workers.

In addition to Leavitt, the Canadian contingent included a trio of Local 13173 officers: chief steward Dave Baker, Health and Safety Chair Ron Davis and Financial Secretary Veronica Salaverry. Added Leavitt:

“Our plants are competitors. But we steelworkers are not. We’re union brothers and sisters. We’re a family, and families hang together.”

Lillie agrees.

The fact that our plants compete with each other means nothing to us. We’re in the same union.

The visitors from north of the border hoisted picket signs and walked the line with Local 7-669 members until about 1:30 a.m., when they returned to town, grabbed supper at the hotel and went to bed.

They were back on the line early the next day. Also, Leavitt took time out to speak to a large crowd of union members and union supporters at the Local 7-669 hall, which is across busy U.S. Highway 45 from the plant. The hall and the plant are just outside Metropolis, an old Ohio River town.

Said Lillie:

We feel blessed the Canadians drove so far to be with us. This is real international solidarity?two unions getting together from two different countries. It’s a huge morale boost for us.

Leavitt said the trip was a spirit lifter for him and his fellow unionists, too. “We wanted to meet our union cousins in the nuclear industry to the south of us.”

The Canadians arrived on a Sunday night and left for home the following Wednesday morning. Explained Leavitt:

Hopefully, this is the start of an alliance between union workers in the nuclear industry in our two countries. I have walked in Darrell’s shoes. I know what he’s going through. In Canada, unions have also come under attack from right-wing governments and the big companies that are in cahoots with them.,

In a related development, an explosion rocked the plant earlier this month one day after federal officials gave Honeywell permission to operate with replacement workers. The blast could be heard from a mile away, according to news reports. It temporarily shut the plant down.

Maybe that was just one of those Rand Paul accidents that ?sometimes happen.? Paul, who is running in Kentucky for the U.S. Senate, has spoken out against strong federal workplace safety regulations.

In April after two Kentucky coal miners were killed on the job in a mine that had been cited for safety violations 840 times in just 16 months, reporters asked Paul what could have been done to prevent the deaths. He verbally shrugged his shoulders and said ?sometimes accidents happen.? (Click here to see a flier being mailed to Kentucky union voters about Paul?s record on job safety and other issues.)

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 22, 2010 (boomark / email).