Holyoke, MA
After several months of negotiations, UE Local 264 members at Holyoke Machine Company won their key demand. As a result, the defined benefit pension plan is maintained and the benefits will be improved in each year of their new five-year contract by $1 per month per year of service. This will increase the pension multiplier from $22 to $25 by the final year of the contract. The average age of the membership is 55, and many workers are close to retiring.
The union negotiating committee made it clear to the company, starting with the first meeting, that their goal was an annual pension increase of $1. The company responded with figures on the cost of improving the pension plan that seemed unrealistically high to the union committee. After the union presented its own calculation of what the cost would be, and demanded to see all the correspondence from the company’s actuary, the company’s story changed. It turned out that the figures the company initially presented were four times higher than the actual costs, The company had offered an increase of 25 cents per year. The amount that the company had claimed was the cost of a 25 cent increase in the pension was actually the cost of a $1 yearly increase!
The other major issue was health insurance. The union was able to keep the same health insurance, and to get the employer to continue reimbursing employees’ deductibles for inpatient and outpatient surgery.
The final agreement was for a five-year agreement, which members wanted in order to safeguard the pension and health insurance. Wages will be increased by 1 percent per year.
Holyoke Machine Co. makes and repairs calendar rolls for the paper making industry. They service paper mills throughout the U.S. The UE negotiating committee was Paul Viverito and Al Bernier, assisted by UE International Rep. Dave Cohen.