NEGOTIATIONS

FMCS Joins Forces with Congressman Gephardt to Bring End to IAM Strike at McDonnell Douglas

McDonnell Douglas Corporation, one of the nation’s largest aerospace manufacturing companies and defense contractors, employs 6,700 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) at its St. Louis facility.

In the 1996 contract negotiations, bargaining was contentious and difficult. The IAM-represented production and maintenance workers went on strike in early June. Little progress toward a new contract was made in several joint meetings with FMCS mediators, and negotiations broke off again in late summer and the strike continued.

In the fall, FMCS Director John Calhoun Wells and U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, in whose St. Louis Congressional District McDonnell Douglas is located, brought the negotiating committees back together with FMCS Commissioners Richard Horn and Fred Reebals in the offices of the Minority Leader in the U.S. Capitol. They met for three hours before adjourning, reconvened on Wednesday of the following week for seven hours, and then began at 9 a.m. on Thursday and continued meeting around the clock for thirty hours until agreement was finally reached Friday evening. The preliminary agreement was ratified the next week by local union members and a 99-day strike was ended.

Pemco Aeroplex/United Automobile Workers End Eight Month Strike

Pemco Aeroplex operates a rehab center for U.S. Air Force C-130 and C-135 aircraft in Birmingham, Alabama, and employs approximately 1,000 UAW-represented workers. When the previous contract expired and bargaining talks stalled, UAW Local 1155 went on strike.

For months FMCS Commissioner Charles Griffin attempted to get negotiations restarted. Director Wells, working closely with Griffin and John Tucker, Director of Mediation Services for the region, called company and union negotiators to FMCS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The parties had three long and productive days of intense discussions at the FMCS National Headquarters before recessing to allow time for research on several specific contract proposals.

The committees reconvened in Lebanon, Tennessee the following week and a proposed settlement was reached. The new contract addressed wages, pensions, insurance benefits and job security, by providing for workforce retraining for those who might face future layoffs. The following week, UAW Local 1155 approved the tentative agreement by a 60% majority.

Within two weeks, replacement workers had left, and the UAW-represented workers ended an eight-month strike and returned to their jobs.

Director Wells commended both union and company negotiators. "The bargaining committees had to work hard to bridge the significant differences that separated them, and craft an agreement that both sides could accept," he said. "With the ratification vote today, a long strike is ended. The company, the workers and the Birmingham, Alabama community all benefit. Now Pemco and its UAW employees can get back to the important work they perform for the United States Air Force."

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Last modified: February 19, 1998