“The idea that you can come to work under terms that you did not agree to should have gone out with the 13th Amendment,” AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson, one of the most well-known labor leaders in the U.S. told attendees at two UE-sponsored virtual events on Wednesday, May 31. (The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude.)
PIIN President Rev. Richard Freeman
“What happens when an employer violates my humanity?” asked Rev. Richard Freeman, the president of the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network. “That’s what Wabtec has done. It has violated the humanity of 1400 people in Erie County. And frankly, I’m mad about it.”
“When I am not treated with honor,” he said, “I have the right to do two things: I can protect my humanity and protest the mistreatment … You need to have the right to withhold your labor when you are mistreated.”
In a virtual press conference and a webinar, the Association of Flight Attendants president and the faith leader joined leaders of UE Local 506 to make the case that workers having the right to strike over grievances mid-contract is the best way to resolve workplace disputes swiftly and fairly.
Local 506, which represents 1400 production workers at the Wabtec locomotive plant, had the right to strike over grievances in their contract with General Electric for over 80 years, prior to Wabtec’s acquisition of the plant in 2019. The local is fighting to restore that right in their negotiations for a second contract with the company. UE Local 618, which represents salaried workers in the plant, is also negotiating with Wabtec.
Essential for the Fight for Green Jobs
AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson
Nelson, who was a speaker at UE’s 2021 convention, emphasized that “Our labor is making this company run, and withholding that labor, together, is the power that we have.”
Referencing the recent report which details the thousands of jobs that green locomotive production could bring to Erie and Western Pennsylvania, Nelson added that “What they [company executives] are trying to do is to demoralize the community so that we don't stand up and fight for these good jobs and the promise of what is coming with building a green economy where everyone can live better lives.”
Rev. Freeman added that, as people of faith, “we believe fervently in protecting the sacred, or that we call Earth, the environment,” and praised Local 506’s efforts to bring increased green locomotive production to Erie as “sacred work.”
“Fundamentally about accountability”
Local 506 President Scott Slawson said his local’s efforts to restore the right to strike is “fundamentally about accountability.”
Four years ago, when the local was negotiating their first contract with Wabtec after the purchase, he said the company “asked us to put a little trust in them, claiming they were a different company — a company that wanted to resolve issues quickly and fairly with their employees.
“We put a little faith in them and agreed to limit our ability to strike over grievances. Over the last four years the company has repeatedly abused that trust, and has proven they don't want to be held accountable for anything regarding their employees.” He said that the company is “trying to turn the grievance process into a management tool rather than a method for settling disputes” and that Local 506 members are “becoming increasingly cynical about the company's commitment to resolving problems.”
Local 506 Chief Plant Steward Leo Grzegorzewski detailed how, since his local lost the right to strike over grievances, the number of grievances going to the third step (the final meeting with the company before arbitration) has increased more than tenfold. Under the GE contract, he said, most grievances were settled at the first or second step, but under the Wabtec contract, no grievances are settled at the first step and only a tiny percentage are settled at the second step.
Backed up by Academic Study
UE General President Carl Rosen, who emceed both events, pointed out that a recent academic study by the Project for Middle-Class Renewal at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana confirms what Slawson and Grzegorzewski said.
That report found that since Local 506 lost the right to strike over grievances, grievances per worker have almost doubled, and the company has become less likely to settle disputes.
The report concludes that, “Since 2019, the new precedent of frequent grievance denials runs the risk of encouraging cynical attitudes among the workforce toward the dispute resolution process. It more broadly threatens to erode the ability of workers and managers to jointly solve workplace disputes.
“The grievance process - as labor law, decades of National Labor Relations Board decisions, and court precedents have historically intended - is a legally-sanctioned alternative to industrial strife. But if it is viewed or used as a management tool more suited to stonewalling labor disputes than to solving them, the grievance process risks becoming a contributor to dysfunctional labor relations.”
“This is the very fight that we have to have”
Over 60 people attended the hour-long afternoon webinar, with over 100 additional people watching the event as a livestream on UE’s Facebook page.
“The moral arc of this fight is on our side,” Rev. Freeman concluded. “Let’s get busy and rally around this fight on both fronts. We should fight for the right to strike [because] if I am being violated it’s the only means I have to … protest maltreatment. Secondly, we need to fight vigorously for the jobs of the future.”
“The right to strike is a fundamental human right,” added Nelson. “We, the Association of Flight Attendants, stand with you … because this is the very fight that we have to have across the country if we are going to take on the existential threats of our time.”
The two UE locals’ contracts expire on June 9.
Both the press conference and the webinar can be viewed on the UE YouTube channel.