GLEN DALE, W.Va.—Ohio Valley union members rallied May 29 to support workers at Tecnocap, a metal-
cap manufacturer south of Wheeling, who have been on strike for more than seven weeks. About 30 members of International Association of Machinists Local 818 District 54 walked out on April 9 after unanimously rejecting a contract offer that would have increased the amount of nonunion labor and moved one-third of the members out of the bargaining unit. “They came to the table with one proposal,” District Lodge 54 President T. Dean Wright Jr. told WTOP-TV “Take it, eat it, accept it.” The Machinists have filed unfair-labor-practice charges with the federal government. “The way we feel as the trades people is that an attack on one is an attack on all,” Eran Molz, president of the Upper Ohio Valley Building and Construction Trades, told WTRF-TV, saying that union construction workers have “lost a lot of local jobs to companies out of Louisiana and Alabama, different areas like that, that don’t even pay income taxes here.” Tecnocap has brought in strikebreakers from other countries and other states, said Machinists spokesperson John Carr, but negotiations continue. Read more
