UAW cautions customers at scab-run Williams Controls

By DON McINTOSH, Associate Editor

What do you do when the company you work for demands you take a wage cut despite the fact that it's doing well financially? If you're a member of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 492 at Williams Controls, you reject the offer and go on strike.

Williams Controls, a Tigard-based manufacturer of electronic throttle controls for trucks, has been struck since Sept. 9.

Since then, about 120 production workers have held strong with a 24-hour picket line - alerting passing motorists, putting moral pressure on about 70 replacement workers, and preventing trucks driven by Teamsters from crossing.

The union has had conflicts with Williams in the past. During the last set of negotiations in 1997, the UAW accused the company of bad-faith bargaining. The two sides were able eventually to reach an agreement, but over the years since then union members say the company failed to live up to it, refusing to process grievances, refusing to pay agreed-upon bonuses, and making changes to work conditions without bargaining.

For the current set of negotiations the company has hired consultant Jim Frazer, an known anti-union negotiator for United Employers Association (formerly known as United Metal Trades), 906 NE 19th Ave., Portland. Union leaders say Frazer has a record of provoking strikes and busting unions that goes back a decade. [SEE RELATED ARTICLE Union-busting consultant Jim Frazer strikes again]

The company's demands include wage cuts, increased employee payments for health coverage, reduced health benefits, halving the number of paid holidays, slashed seniority rights, and elimination of the eight-hour day, early retiree health benefits, the profit-sharing bonus, and protections against plant closings.

Since seven weeks into the strike the company isn't budging, the battle is likely to be won or lost outside of bargaining, says UAW chief negotiator Ned Scott.

Bargaining Committee Chair Dave Himebauch, a tool and die machinist at Williams, thinks the strike is hurting the company economically.

No strikers have gone back to work for the company. As many as 70 replacement workers are crossing picket lines each day. Strikers are writing down strikebreakers' license plate numbers as they pass. Himebauch said picketers get pretty vocal toward the workers who are taking their jobs, and supporters from Jobs With Justice sometimes follow them into the parking lot to talk with them. The union is calling on other union members to show support by visiting the picket line at 14100 SW 72nd Ave.

On Oct. 18, picketer Dixon Long was hit by a strikebreaker's car, causing bruises and prompting a police visit. The following week another replacement worker bruised Himebauch's wife after brushing his vehicle into her. On the other hand, no complaints have been filed by the company or police against picketers, despite constant video surveillance by black-clad security guards.

At least four temp agencies are supplying the replacement workers - Talent Tree, Staffmark, Westaff and Beginright Employment Services.

Teamster truck drivers have refused to cross picket lines, so Williams has turned to non-union haulers to pick up the slack, including City Sprint, Midwest Motor Express and Overnite Transportation.

Since Williams is trying to produce truck parts with inexperienced replacement workers, the union is asking workers at Williams' customers to be on guard against defective parts. Strikers hope truck drivers' concern about safety will translate into pressure on Williams customers, including Freightliner, Navistar, Volvo Trucks, PACCAR, Mack Trucks, Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Magna International.

Williams makes 80 percent of the throttles in the world, Himebauch said, and no other American company makes them.

"If you see a big rig truck on the road, it's got a Williams throttle that was made on the floor in there."

The union is also going after suppliers, sending a husband and wife team of strikers around to talk to them about the labor dispute. Aside from the moral questions involved in doing business with a company that's trying to bust its union, suppliers may fear that the strike will damage the company's ability to pay them. Himebauch says he thinks several of Williams 20-odd suppliers have already refused to sell to the company, causing serious bottlenecks in production.

Strikers are considering putting pressure on Williams' new chief executive officer R. Eugene Goodson, former CEO of Oshkosh Truck, by picketing his Michigan home and putting a full-page ad in the Ann Arbor newspaper.

And the union is pursuing legal avenues - it filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that the company is engaging in "surface bargaining," going through the motions without ever intending to settle.

If the union wins this charge, the company would be prohibited from permanently replacing strikers, and could owe back wages. Himebauch says a preliminary ruling by the NLRB was expected this month.

Williams has been losing money the last few years, but Himebauch says much of that is due to debt payments that previous owner Tom Itin made to pay for purchases of subsidiary companies that proved unprofitable. The company acknowledges that the Tigard operation where the strikers work has always been profitable.

Earlier this year, Williams was taken over by those creditors, including auto industry investors American Industrial Partners, pension fund manager Eubel, Brady, & Suttman, and Dolphin Offshore Partners, a Caribbean-registered company owned by millionaire Peter Salas. The new owners brought in new managers, and with the contract expiring Aug. 31, showed a new aggressiveness toward the union, with proposals for across-the-board takeaways. "They engineered this strike," Himebauch said. "We aren't going to put up with it. We're going to prevail."

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