Category Archives: Notice

Strike Settlement

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This STRIKE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT (“Agreement”) reached the 6th day of March 2019, between WABTEC CORPORATION (“Company”) and the UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE) and its LOCAL UNION NOS. 506 and 618 (“Union”) (the Company and the Union are sometimes collectively referenced as the “Parties”), includes the following terms and conditions:

On behalf of its members, the Union agrees to terminate its strike and return to work subject to the terms of the March 6, 2019 Memorandum of Agreement (the “Interim Agreement”) and this Agreement.  No compensation will be paid by the Company for any time not worked due to participation in the strike.

On or before 6:30 AM on Monday, March 11, 2019, the Union will remove all tents, chairs, signage, barrels, pallets, firewood, garbage and other debris from the exterior of the Company’s Erie Plant.

Employees will return to work beginning at 6:30 AM on Monday, March 11, 2019.  Employees will be reinstated to their pre-strike job classifications and shift assignments without loss of seniority.  By close of business on March 8, 2019, the Company will provide a list of employees for whom no work is immediately available.  These employees will not be required to report for work but will be placed on temporary layoff subject to the payment of Income Aid Extension benefits.

For those employees who are enrolled in medical, dental and other welfare plans sponsored by Wabtec, the Company will retroactively reinstate their coverage under these plans effective to Tuesday, February 26, 2019.  For employees who have not yet enrolled, Wabtec will provide retroactive coverage under the Company’s medical, dental and other welfare plans as long as such employees enroll prior to March 28, 2019.

Except for two employees identified by the Parties who will receive disciplinary suspensions, the Company will take no disciplinary action against any employee for any strike activities.  Further, both the Union agree that there will be no reprisals against, or discrimination towards, any employee, bargaining unit or otherwise, based upon his/her participation or non-participation in Union activities.  Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to waive any pre-existing agreements between the Union and the Company requiring the Union to reimburse employees for strike-related property damage.

The Parties agree that the Company’s officers, directors and managers, and the Union’s officers, executive board, stewards and employees, will limit public comment regarding the Interim Agreement and this Agreement to a joint statement regarding the strike settlement agreement in the form attached as Exhibit A.  Upon execution of this Agreement, the Company will send this joint statement (on behalf of both Parties) to all news outlets in Erie and select outlets in Pittsburgh that have covered the Parties’ labor dispute.  The Union will simultaneously post the joint statement on their website.

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Transfer of Work Notice

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UNION BLASTS GE ANNOUNCEMENT OF MORE JOB LOSSES

In response to GE’s announcement yesterday of its intent to take more work out of the Erie plant, UE Local 506 issued the following press release:

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Local 506 of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), the union representing production and maintenance workers at the Erie GE plant, is expressing anger and a sense of betrayal at GE’s July 27 announcement that it plans to move international locomotive production out of Erie to Fort Worth, Texas, at a cost of 575 Erie jobs.

Local 506 President Scott Slawson said the union feels betrayed by the company’s announcement. Despite previous rounds of layoffs in Erie since GE opened the Fort Worth plant in 2012, the union has worked with the company to secure the existing jobs in the Erie plant and improve the plant’s performance. “We’ve been working very closely with them for the past year and a half to improve quality, efficiency, delivery. Our efficiency is up to triple what Fort Worth’s is in the locomotive business, and it’s still not enough for them.

Slawson added, “Last November we signed a Job Preservation Agreement with this company in an effort to not just preserve jobs but preserve the future of Erie. That agreement was signed in good faith and ratified by a vote of our membership. We were led to believe, by the company, that this was going to secure the future in Erie. Yet here we are, eight months later, being handed a transfer of work notice that basically says, we like what you’ve done but too bad.”

Slawson questioned the wisdom of the company’s decision to concentrate locomotive production in Fort Worth, a plant whose performance has lagged far behind Erie’s. “Our efficiency in Erie has risen and been maintained. The latest figures we’ve seen indicate that efficiency percentage in locomotive production in Fort Worth is in the lowest of all GE Transportation plants, while Erie’s efficiency is more than double Fort Worth’s.” He also noted that when GE began operating the Fort Worth plant four years ago it described it as an “overflow” facility, auxiliary to the Erie plant, but that GE has now betrayed those commitments.

The company, in Slawson’s view, is obsessed with pursuing cheap labor to the detriment of all other considerations. He said the Fort Worth plant has a high rate of employee turnover because of low wages. Workers are leaving GE Fort Worth and finding union-represented jobs at much higher pay.

Slawson thanked U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) for his statement criticizing GE’s actions. Earlier Thursday Casey issued a statement saying GE had “turned its back on Northwestern Pennsylania and the workers who have made its company a success,” and calling the company’s actions “insulting”. Casey added, “The skilled, experienced workers in Erie have done everything that has been asked of them, only to get slapped in the face by GE over and over again.”

National union officials of UE and of Local 506 plan to meet in the coming days. “We’re meeting with our leaders and members in Erie to review all options for fighting this outrageous attack by GE,” said Gene Elk, UE’s Director of Organization, one of its three national officers.

Elk added, “The Erie GE plant has been in operation for more than 110 years. Generations of Erie workers, their families and the entire community have worked hard and sacrificed to build this company, and GE has made billions of dollars in Erie.” Elk noted that as recently as the 1970s GE employed 20,000 people in Erie, manufacturing a variety of products, but the company had steadily downsized the plant by removing one product line after another. “Each time it eliminated another Erie business, GE assured the workers and the community of its ‘commitment to Erie’ and that the remaining jobs would be retained,” said Elk.