Posted on 08/23/2009 3:10:52 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
FOND DU LAC, Wis. – Union workers at Mercury Marine put their jobs at risk Sunday when they rejected a package of wage and benefit concessions the boat engine maker said it needed or it would move their work to a nonunion plant in Oklahoma.
Union leaders did not immediately release Sunday's tally but said the vote was "overwhelming" to reject what the company called its final offer.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 1947, represents 850 workers at Mercury Marine, the largest employer in the eastern Wisconsin city of Fond du Lac and the world's largest manufacturer of boat and recreational marine engines.
Mercury Marine issued a statement after the vote saying it will move many of its Fond du Lac manufacturing operations to its facility in Stillwater, Okla., over the next two to three years. The company said it would continue to operate the Fond du Lac facility for now under the terms and conditions of the existing contract, which expires in 2012.
"This has been a very difficult and stressful process for all involved," Mark Schwabero, president of Mercury Marine, said in a statement. "We will work closely with our team in Fond du Lac to develop and communicate a transition plan for this 24-36 month process."
Mercury Marine spokesman Steve Fleming had said last week that if the offer was rejected, the union and company could resume talks and hold another vote this coming Saturday, but its offer would not change.
Local 1947 President Mark Zillges said Friday there would be no further negotiations. He did not immediately return a phone call Sunday seeking comment.
Fond du Lac city manager Thomas Herre called the vote "a huge disappointment."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Just come to Pueblo Colorado. This stupid town should be the international monument to union stupidity. We had the largest steel mill west of the Mississippi, Rockwool Insulation, and Aplha Beta Meat Packing, All three of these major employers were destroyed by unions. The steel mill collapsed, Rockwool collapsed and Alpha Beta said the union needed to renegotiate and of course the union said no, They closed up shop and left the next day. Pueblo has never recovered and still clings to the stupid unions.
If that happens, Wisconsin'g gain will be Oklahoma's loss.
Perhaps so, or perhaps there will be a temporary boom in security jobs in Fond du Lac.
Apparently these bozos are not familiar with the term “half a loaf is better than none”.
So now instead of having a job that pays $20 an hour, they will have NO job that pays NOTHING per hour.
How does this make sense in any way?
DO IT Mercury!
Oklahoma will work with you and with reasonable dictate. : - D
The liberals just don't get it....
Indy, you and I are on the same page. It’s just a tuff time right now. FRegards FReind.
This is at LEAST 8000 jobs lost.
Lost? Sounds to me like they quit.
HEAR! ! HEAR ! ! !
A major issue has been raised by isthisnickcool in just six words.
The issue is: Having voted for a known shut down of their jobs, do the union thugs still qualify for unemployment?
Or have they quit and therefore forfeited unemployment?
It’s called ‘combined reporting’, passed in the last budget, that’s why Harley just lost 22 million. Doyle is a disgrace.
I thought about that, but you have to remember, it is the American spirit that will take those who want a better life to that life. The union types will sit around feeling sorry for themselves, angry at those who succeed, while waiting for government to take care of them.
Sorry about your family, WI is SO screwed.
Actually it is good for union jobs to be lost.
Now free people can take those jobs, people whose dues are not going for a socialist mean spirited, liberal, PETA, Greenpeace agenda.
Let them ask the Kenyan for help.
I spent a wonderful year in a prep school in Carbondale, and had a friend in Evergreen, but -— Colorado has left both the American way and forsaken it’s Western heritage.
Largely, the Boulder Dementia Syndrome (BDS)has taken over. I was unaware that Pueblo has succumbed to BDS.
I still hope that a strong dose of reality will return Colorado to its past way of life. But, I have been accused of undue optimism before.
These Unions keep hoping the Democrats will save them, with moves like “Card Check” etc. It has not happened.
<<
The union people will wish they voted the other way soon.
>>
No they won’t. Parasites are always parasites. They don’t know how to be anything else.
I hate Doyle. He is a disgrace. There was so much crap in his budget it was impossible to keep up with all of it. There were dozens of highly objectionable things hidden in that budget. One that stuck with me, though it may not be the most costly as a whole, was the increase in gun buyer background check fees from 8 dollars to 30. Not 8 to 10, 8 to 30! He’s king of the liberal jerks.
Why are we surrounded by so many liberal idiots? Don’t they like Harley Davidson’s? Mercury Marine motors? GM cars from Janesville (el-gone-o!)? What will be left, just the thugs in Milwaukee and Madison? A complete welfare state? Geesh.
Better be some drastic changes in 2010 and 2012. I’m considering a move to more friendly territory...
Stupid union. The same thing happened in Carlisle Pennsylvania a few years ago. The union wanted a bigger pay raise and rejected management’s offer. The company closed up shop and left. I guess the union thought they were bluffing. A lot of angry workers who listened to there union bosses really got the shaft.
I wonder why people would prefer to be unemployed rather than make some concessions.
Going thru some of the same stuff in York Pennsylvania with the Harley Davidson plant. Of course the state isn’t much help with the tax structure and the pro union stance. Getting hard to do business in Pa and make a decent profit.
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