http://themilitant.com/2015/7944/794404.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 44 December 7, 2015
(front page)
Wis. UAW members: ‘Two-tier pay has to go!’
1,500 Kohler strikers, supporters march & rally
Militant/Dan Fein
UAW strikers marched against Kohler’s attacks Nov. 21, demanding end to
two-tier wages.
BY ALYSON KENNEDY
KOHLER, Wis. — More than 1,500 striking members of United Auto Workers
Local 833 and their supporters turned out for a spirited mass picket and
march in front of the Kohler manufacturing plant here Nov. 21. Six days
earlier the 2,100-member local voted overwhelmingly to strike, rejecting
the company’s contract proposal to maintain two-tier wages and raise
health care costs.
Many unionists — members of the Teamsters, Machinists, United Food and
Commercial Workers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and
Teachers unions — relatives and others turned out in the snow to support
the strikers.
“I need you to stand tough with us on this. We need to take care of each
other,” Local 833 President Tim Tayloe told the crowd from the back of a
pickup truck after they had marched past the plant. “Just make it equal
and fair for everybody, and we’ll go back in there and put their product
out again,” he said, challenging the company. Then everyone marched back
to the union hall.
The central issue is Kohler’s refusal to eliminate a two-tier wage and
benefit structure in a contract adopted in 2010 when bosses claimed they
needed help because of the economic downturn.
“We are not backing down,” Lori DeSmith, a Tier B worker in the plating
department for three years who makes $12.50 an hour, told the Militant.
“This is so unfair. We are all in this together.”
DeSmith brought her two sons — Devin DeSmith, a high school student, and
Alex Turner, 18, an auto mechanic — to the march. “It was pretty cool
seeing everyone getting together for a common cause,” Turner said.
“The two-tier setup has to go,” said Charles Kestell, a castings grinder
who has worked at Kohler more than 41 years. “We can’t have people
making much less. The union will be gone if we don’t get rid of
two-tier. Kohler used to be the preferred workplace. Now they can’t get
people to stay.”
Kohler, founded in the Wisconsin company town in 1873, employs 30,000
people in operations on six continents, making plumbing fixtures,
engines and power generation systems, with annual revenues of $6
billion. In Sheboygan County 5,000 people work for the company.
“This is my first strike,” said Adam Stange, 21, who has worked in the
foundry casting toilet bowls for five months. As a Tier B worker he
makes $13.30 an hour. Tier A workers doing the same job make $24. Stange
also has Tier B medical insurance. “We pay more for premiums and have
higher deductibles,” he said.
Curt Brauer, business agent for IBEW Local 494, which represents more
than 2,000 electrical workers in six counties in southeast Wisconsin,
came to the march to show solidarity with the strikers. “Kohler only
hires non-union contractors,” he said.
Mike Zimmermann, president of the Sheboygan County Labor Council, told
the Militant area unions “will be organizing food drives and help with
picketing to back the strikers.”
Following a Nov. 16 march of more than 1,000 strikers and supporters
that blocked traffic for miles, a Sheboygan County circuit court judge
granted Kohler’s request for an injunction prohibiting strikers from
interfering with traffic near its property.
The union is fighting the family-owned company’s demands for further
restrictions to prohibit mass protests. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 25.
Send letter of support and donations to The Kohler UAW Local 833 Workers
Relief Fund, Emil Mazey Hall, 5425 Superior Ave., Sheboygan, WI 53083.
Related articles:
Verizon unionists rally against concession demands
On the Picket Line
Airport workers strike in 7 cities for $15 and union
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