American workers fight for pensions and wages

UNITED STATES: On May 1, just as a prior six year labour agreement expired, 800 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) went on strike against Caterpillar Inc. in Joliet, Illinois. The plant manufactures hydraulics and other components for heavy equipment, including mining trucks that Caterpillar makes at other factories in Illinois and elsewhere.

In the first quarter of 2012 Caterpillar has registered profits of US$1.5 billion and is asking IAM Local 851 members to take a six-year wage freeze. Caterpillar is also seeking medical cost reductions by proposing a doubling of workers’ out-of-pocket health care costs.

According to the IAM in 2011 Caterpillar CEO Douglas Oberhelman has been paid in US$16.9 million which is 60 per cent higher of what he received in 2011, other top executives also received sizable pay increases.

Another local branch of the IAM is now in its second week of a full strike at a major US Defense Department contractor, Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas.

Some 3,600 workers represented by IAM walked out when their contract ended at midnight on April 22 to protect pensions and health care benefits at Lockheed Martin facilities in Texas, California and Maryland for new hired employees. According to IAM the last offer of the employer “included language to bar new hires from participating in the defined benefit pension plan.” The rejected proposal also called for switching a majority of Lockheed workers to a high-deductible, high-cost health care plan with no cap on annual out-of-pocket expenses.

“This is ground zero in the nationwide fight to protect health care and pension benefits,” declared IAM Southern Territory General vice president Bob Martinez. “The defined benefit pension plan at Lockheed is a legacy benefit that was won for us by earlier generations of IAM members, and we are not about to be the generation that gives it back.”

IAM members voted by 94 per cent on 22 April to reject the company’s proposal, and followed that with a 93 per cent vote to strike. The Fort Worth aerospace plant employs another 10,000 contractors and non-bargaining union staff of Lockheed who continue to work through the strike. Lockheed Martin’s first quarter 2012 profits rose a full 20 per cent over postings in for the same period in 2011, with net income rising to US$665 million.

More details are in ICEM report http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/5013-US-Machinists-Strike-Lockheed-Aeronautics-in-Texas-Caterpillar-Plant-in-Illinois May 03, 2012 – Alex Ivanou