Only 162 of the 395 local Briggs employees represented by United Steelworkers Local 2-232 voted on Saturday, the
company said. That was because the union had short notice, receiving the
company’s proposal on Wednesday and disseminating it to workers the following
day, Jesse Edwards, president of
USW Local 2-232 and a Briggs production worker, told The Business Journal.
Both sides have indicated they want to continue
negotiations. Briggs spokeswoman Laura
Timm said the company thought the
rejected offer was “fair and equitable,” but Edwards called it a “bad
contract.”
“We continue to work with the company over the years and
they continue to take away from the people,” Edwards said in a phone interview.
“It’s just time that they share some of the profits, some of the benefits with
the members rather than just consistently taking away from them.”
The rejected four-year contract would raise wages 2
percent annually during three years of the deal, Timm said. But Edwards and
union members are upset because it wouldn’t increase wages in the first year of
the contract, he said.
The contract would freeze pensions for union workers
beginning Dec. 31, something already announced for salaried workers. The
company is “enhancing” its 401(k) match starting in January, Timm said, but
Edwards said the company match is “not that lucrative.”
Other parts of the rejected contract include a slight
increase in mandatory Saturday workdays, aligning health and benefits programs
with salaried employees’ benefits, and better life and accidental death
benefits, Timm said.
The proposal would also eliminate job preference provisions
beginning in 2017, which Timm said would have no economic impact on employees
and that most local union employees do not have job preference. Edwards
disputed that, saying that workers use job preference all the time and the
union will push to keep it.
He said the proposed contract would allow the company to
hire more temporary workers.
“It eats at the heart of the union,” Edwards said. “We
would like for them to hire full-time workers.”
Jeff Engel www.bizjournals.com
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