Benefits of representation...

If you’re of my age, you’ve likely already got word about the UAW’s victory in Tulsa, where an arbitrator ruled that UAW-represented employees in Spirit-Tulsa were laid off from Boeing and, as such, were entitled to all the layoff benefits in their Boeing contract. Which includes the early retiree pension and medical we’re looking for in our suit.

While the arbitrator in the UAW case makes some really good arguments in his decision, my favorite part of the ruling was his cite of another arbitrator’s ruling in a case called ARCO Metals Co., supra

We reach the conclusion that the company could not have terminated its nonprobationers as of March 5,1984 when it sold the plant. We find that the employees were not discharged for cause and neither did they voluntarily quit. What did happen to them? They were laid off, purely and simply...

...These employees need not have been laid off. Arrangements could have been made for their transfer. ANAMET could have assumed the obligations of the collective bargaining agreement and in effect stood in the shoes of Anaconda. Under such circumstances, no lay off would have occurred and hence there would be the absence of the event which triggers the 70/80 [pension] eligibility. These arrangements were not made undoubtedly for good and sufficient reason which are of no concern here. As it turns out, the employees continued in the same physical location but in different jobs insofar as the protection afforded them by the collective bargaining agreement was concerned. Among other concessions was the relinquishing of any rights to the 70/80 pensions for ANAMET employees. Such differences, whether justified by the economic situation of the company or not (I am assuming ample justification for such changes existed), argue that the jobs were not the same jobs the employees had at Anaconda. They were not the same jobs from which they were laid off.

Save for the part about believing the company’s economic situation justified the employees wage and benefit cuts, it sounds exactly like what went on with the Boeing-Spirit divestiture and has been the argument I’ve been using to explain SPEEA's case in our class action lawsuit.


-- Bill, who’s looking forward to that early retirement next year...