A settlement of pay and benefit claims has been reached between the members of UE Local 1174, who formerly worked at Quad City Die Casting (QCDC), and the trustee in charge of the company’s assets. UE members will be paid for vacation to which they were entitled in 2009, and the trustee will place money from the sale of the company’s assets into a fund to settle workers’ outstanding medical bills that went unpaid when the company retroactively cancelled health coverage last year. The medical fund will be sufficient to settle these bills with healthcare providers at approximately 50 cents on the dollar, which is expected to be enough to relieve the workers of any liability.
The settlement was announced by the union at a February 18 press conference in Moline, which included Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.
“We’re glad to get our vacation and medical bills paid,” said Deb Johann, secretary of UE Local 1174 and a former QCDC worker. “We stuck together and didn’t give up. We would have been paid sooner if Wells Fargo had not been so greedy.” UE Field Organizer Leah Fried said that the difficult struggle against the bank “… educated the community about what kind of corporate citizen Wells Fargo is, and it kept the workers united and focused on claiming what was theirs.”
Quad City Die Casting announced in May 2009 that the plant would close because Wells Fargo had cut off the credit necessary to continue operations. Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank in assets in the U.S., was the recipient of a $25 billion bailout, courtesy U.S. taxpayers, following the 2008 financial crash caused by the major banks’ reckless practices. But after the federal government bailed out the big bankers, they cut their lending to small companies like QCDC by 42 percent nationwide. Local 1174 and its allies, including State Treasurer Giannoulias, Congressmen Phil Hare and Bill Braley, and Governor Pat Quinn, pressured Wells Fargo to help keep the plant open and maintain approximately 100 jobs. After the bank refused to cooperate with attempts to save the plant, the union fought to get members the money they had earned – but Wells Fargo continued to stand in the way.
State Treas. Alexi Giannoulias expressed his disappointment that the factory closed, but said the back pay and benefits would provide a lifeline for many struggling families. ”After a bank like Wells Fargo receives $25 billion in taxpayer bailout funds, it has a responsibility to act as a good corporate citizen, not stiff workers on pay and benefits they legally earned,” said Giannoulias. “Moving forward, we cannot continue to subsidize these big banks when credit markets remain frozen and executives get big bonuses while small businesses struggle and unemployment remains at record levels. They must invest in American jobs and American workers, not put our economy at further risk.” Giannoulias had visited workers at the plant last summer and pledged the state’s help to secure financing for a new owner – but thanks in large part to Wells Fargo, a plant sale never occurred.
High demand for its products and the skill and hard work of Local 1174 members kept the plant open throughout the summer of 2009, earning Wells Fargo, the primary creditor, an additional million dollars. Despite this unexpected windfall, Wells Fargo refused to pay workers their vacation or pay the healthcare bills. But UE members didn’t give up the fight, organizing numerous protest rallies against Wells Fargo and filing legal charges to win what they were due. This settlement resolves the legal charges.
The settlement came in spite of the persistent obstructionism of Wells Fargo, according to UE Western Region President Carl Rosen. “Wells Fargo was an obstacle every step of the way, from beginning to end,” says Rosen. “They cut off credit to the company, hindered efforts to sell the plant and keep it open, and then stood in the way of all efforts to reach a settlement that would pay our members the money they were owed. The only reason this settlement has been reached now is that the trustee has paid off Wells Fargo, from the assets of the former company, and so they are finally out of the picture and no longer able to block payment to the workers.”
Workers’ 2009 vacation money, which they earned in 2008, will be paid in full as soon as the plant building is sold this spring. Workers can certainly use that money. Deb Johann of Local 1174 says most of the members have not yet been able to find other jobs. “You send in your resume to all these places but you never hear back,” she said.