LIMA — Union employees of the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center heard about their new contract Sunday, including concessions many were not happy about as part of the latest contract offer with General Dynamics.
Employees of United Auto Workers union Local 2075 and similar employees at three other plants were scheduled to vote on a new four-year contract Sunday. The vote should be tallied by Monday, said Carl Swartz, president of Local 2075 in Lima.
Union workers expressed anger over what amounts to pay cuts even if they weren’t getting their pay slashed. Part of the contract calls for bringing laid-off workers back at 70 percent of their original wage even if they had worked their way up to 100 percent of the wage during earlier employment with the chance to work to 100 percent over four more years, Swartz said.
“They are concerned about their brothers and sisters coming back from layoff and having to work back up to 100 percent,” Swartz said. “To recall a guy who has already done that once and do that again is hard. Those were all active guys who were mad. They don’t like that. They want them to come back at how they left, which I understand.”
Another point that angered workers was the outsourcing of jobs at the local plant. General Dynamics wants to get rid of 18 jobs of people who work as custodians and maintaining the grounds outside, he said.
The union represents about 600 employees at the plant with 300 of those on layoff, Swartz said.
The plant has a two-tier system in which new hires are brought in at 60 percent of the wage but can work their way up to 100 percent over time, Swartz said.
The government-owned, contractor-operated plant has been under threat of closure for various reasons for decades. Some union members were concerned that if workers didn’t pass the contract it could affect future work.
Plant employees are not happy with the politicians in Washington, D.C., Swartz said.
Sequestration and lack of military funding in the U.S. government has affected the plant as it makes the U.S. Army less willing to spend more on quality products such as those made at the plant, local officials said.
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