Locomotive Workers Strike After New Owner Demands Pay Cuts

ERIE, Pa.—About 1,700 members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America went on strike Feb. 26 at a locomotive plant here, after the new owner refused to honor their current contract and tried to impose a two-tier contract with massive pay cuts. The plant, formerly owned by General Electric, has been a UE union shop since 1938, but was taken over Feb. 25 by the Wabtec Corporation, a Westinghouse spinoff that merged with GE Transportation. Wabtec’s terms, UE Locals 506 and 618 said, include “mandatory overtime and arbitrary schedules, wage reductions of up to 38% for recalled and newly hired workers, and the right to use temporary workers for up to 20% of the work.” Wabtec executive Greg Sbrocco wrote in the Erie Times News that with an average wage of $35 an hour, the plant was “GE Transportation’s least competitive site globally,” and that paying new hires $16.75-$25 was “a standard practice by U.S. manufacturing companies to aggressively compete with competitors in low-cost countries like China or Mexico.” “If we don’t stand up now, things are going to get a lot worse for a lot of people here,” safety coordinator Donny Brown told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Read more