Union sets vote on Whirlpool contract

A union official says a proposed contract between union members and Whirlpool Corp. falls short of what the employees deserve. However, the official says the contract is probably the best and last deal the company may offer.

Union members remaining at Whirlpool’s Fort Smith manufacturing plant are set to vote Wednesday (Feb. 8) on an “Effects Bargaining Agreement” that will guide how pay and transition benefits are structured during the plant’s closing. The Local 370 union hall will open for voting between 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Whirlpool announced Oct. 27 it would close the plant by mid-2012, resulting in the expected loss of 1,000 jobs. The refrigerator manufacturing plant, which employed around 4,600 as recent as early 2006, has been operated by Whirlpool more than 45 years.

Clyde Dailey, an international representative with the United Steelworkers who also worked 32 years in Whirlpool’s Fort Smith plant, said the Whirlpool proposal is probably the best deal union members will see.

“I don’t know what other option they have than just to accept it,” Dailey said when asked if the union was encouraging members to vote for or against the proposal. “We’re almost at the mercy of what the company wants. … In my opinion, the offer was short of what I think the employees really deserve.”

Whirlpool officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment on the effort to reach a transition bargaining agreement.

The 10-page agreement presented Jan. 20 to union members was hammered out by Whirlpool and a Bargaining Committee Members. The agreement includes details on retiree medical benefits, severance pay, pension plans, performance pay and holiday pay.

‘SHORTCHANGED’
Dailey pointed to severance pay and insurance coverage as examples in which employees are being “shortchanged” by Whirlpool. The company is offering a $6,000 lump sum severance payment to employees on the active payroll as of Oct. 28, 2011. For employees on involuntary layoff status, the severance payment is $3,000 for those with 14-plus years seniority and $1,500 with seven to 14 years seniority.

The union proposed a severance payment of $750 per years of service, with the payment made in lump sum or contributed to a 401(k) or other retirement plan, Dailey explained. The payment level was rejected by Whirlpool.

Insurance coverage is provided for three months under the proposed agreement. Dailey said the union wanted to extend the coverage period, especially for the Whirlpool employees undergoing cancer and other expensive treatments.

“They will be left high and dry,” Dailey said when asked what happens after 90 days to employees undergoing expensive medical care.

CONTRACT COMPLAINT
The company on Dec. 1 sent separation information notices and money in some cases to up to 954 employees. The payments were based on terms Whirlpool outlined in the Dec. 1 memo, and not on terms negotiated between the company and the union. However, union officials viewed the unilateral action by the company as acting outside the terms of the existing labor contract.

The United Steelworkers Local 370 filed on Dec. 22 a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Whirlpool Corp. is violating terms of a labor contract. The complaint alleges that officials with Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool Corp. are ignoring terms of an existing labor contract as they move to close the Fort Smith refrigeration manufacturing plant by mid-2012.

“On or about December 19, 2011, the above Employer unilaterally terminated existing recall rights for bargaining union employees without prior notice to the Union and in the absence of any impasse,” Clyde Dailey, international representative with the United Steelworkers, wrote in the charge filing.

It is unclear what will happen to the complaint if the union approves the agreement. Ronald Hooks, regional director of the NLRB in Memphis, said Monday the agent working the case has been out of the office on a personal matter. Hooks said he did not have the latest documents on the case.

Dailey said lawyers with the union will have to decide to continue to push the complaint or withdraw it.