Shaw’s Rejects Union’s Offer to Settle Strike at Methuen Warehouse

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100503006950&newsLang=en

May 03, 2010 04:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Shaw’s Rejects Union’s Offer to Settle Strike at Methuen Warehouse

Company’s new package drastically cuts jobs, health insurance and pension benefits

SOUTH EASTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 791 announced today that Shaw’s Supermarkets rejected the union’s contract offer and countered with a very regressive proposal that is significantly worse than their two previous packages. With no agreement reached, the strike at the Shaw’s Methuen Perishable Distribution Center is in its ninth week. Local 791 has filed an unfair labor practice against Shaw’s with the National Labor Relations Board stating the company is bargaining in “bad faith.”


“Clearly, Shaw’s is using health care as a weapon to punish their workers for standing up. Such behavior is unconscionable because it lowers standards in our communities and that should not be tolerated”


The two parties met with a federal mediator on Sunday, May 2, 2010, at the Holiday Inn Mansfield Massachusetts. “In an effort to end this strike, the union made significant movement in our contract offer but was flatly rejected by Shaw’s,” said union spokesman Peter Derouen.

Instead of bargaining in good faith to reach an agreement, the company proposed a new package, after having withdrawn their two previous proposals. In addition to providing for drastic wages decreases, the new offer takes away the workers’ health care plan, the pension plan for new employees, seniority rights, and also contains measures that would result in the loss of jobs.

The entire package is conditioned on a number of things: the replacement workers stay in the facility, meaning that more bargaining unit employees will lose their jobs. Shaw’s also stated their intention of moving the meat and deli work out of the Methuen facility and subcontracting it to C & S Wholesalers, which will reduce the work performed by bargaining unit employees by 50 percent.

FULL story at link.

[Justice]

1. Bad Faith Negotiations by Company

They make a horrible offer initially, and then say if you refuse this one, the next one is going to be more horrible. Complete bad faith; just trying to break the union

How does the management negotiating team stomache it?

[Earth Bound Misfit]

2. The only reason they do it (bad-faith bargain) is

because they CAN.

EFCA NOW