Essential workers deserve a good contract, Cottage Grove Steelworkers tell 3M

August 19, 2020 by

Members of United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 hold informational picketing outside 3M’s plant in Cottage Grove.

Steelworkers at 3M’s Cottage Grove plant agreed this week to a two-month extension of their previous union contract, but members are putting the company on notice today that the fight for a contract that rewards their essential work has just begun.

Informational picketing outside the plant, where some 370 members of United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 work, drew a large crowd during a shift change early this morning, and union members plan to be back outside for another info-picket this afternoon. 

“Everyone’s together on this,” John Helkamp, the local’s financial secretary, said. “We’re essential workers. We’d like a fair contract.” 

Talks between the two sides got off to a bitter start.  

First, Helkamp said, management took a combative stance over supplying workers with masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. While non-union workers at the plant received free masks, 3M pushed local union leaders to sign a memorandum of understanding before issuing masks to union members – a stance 3M, a global supplier of masks, later walked back, Helkamp said. 

Around the same time, union leaders approached management about an accommodation for workers whose premium pay on weekends was scheduled to disappear abruptly.  

A provision in the previous union contract included premium pay rates for workers who clock 12-hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays, but it also included a sunset clause phasing out the provision when the contract expired. That happened this week, and some union members soon will lose as much as 18 hours’ worth of wages from their paychecks.  

“We asked about some kind of an accommodation,” Helkamp said “The company first said it had to be done in negotiations. Then we got to negotiations, and they said it’s not something they’re going to negotiate.” 

Now, Steelworkers are resisting several of 3M’s contract demands, Helkamp said. Management wants the power to change start times and shift lengths at will, which could move all workers into 12-hour shifts. And 3M wants the power to eliminate job classifications unilaterally, an issue that bogged down negotiations four years ago, when management sought to kick custodians out of the bargaining unit.  

In all, 3M brought 100 stipulations to the bargaining table, according to the union. The two sides have reached agreement on roughly 30, with 30 others being set aside for economic talks.  

Those have yet to begin, but local leaders say their talks in Cottage Grove are progressing at about the same pace as negotiations at comparable facilities across the U.S. have taken.  

The two sides have scheduled 11 bargaining sessions during the contract extension, which runs through Oct. 16. 

The Cottage Grove facility produces chemicals, tape, film, abrasives and other products. 

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Cottage Grove Steelworkers overwhelmingly reject 3M’s contract proposal

October 5, 2016 by

Terry Fredrick drove 45 minutes from Woodville, Wis., to join informational picketing outside the 3M plant in Cottage Grove, where he's worked for over six years.

Terry Fredrick isn’t scheduled to clock in today, but he drove 45 minutes from Woodville, Wis., to join pre-dawn picketing outside the 3M plant in Cottage Grove, where he’s worked for over six years.

 

Two days after voting 3M’s contract proposal down, Steelworkers at the company’s Cottage Grove chemicals plant are putting their informational picket lines back up.

Members of United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 said they hoped the overwhelming opposition to 3M’s proposal, rejected by a 5-to-1 margin, delivers a message to the company, which made nearly $5 billion in profits last year.

“We aren’t going to accept some of the concessions that they’re looking for,” Local 11-00418 President Mike Schanks said. “We’re willing to bargain, but some of the things they want are just too much to ask.”

R to L: Jeff Puhl, Jeremy Hackbarth and Josh Noltin stand up for a fair contract outside 3M's Cottage Grove chemicals plant.

R to L: Jeff Puhl, Jeremy Hackbarth and Josh Noltin stand up for a fair contract outside 3M’s Cottage Grove chemicals plant.

About 380 Steelworkers work inside the Cottage Grove facility, and they’ve ramped up their campaign for a fair contract in recent months, hoping to fight off steep concessionary demands from 3M.

The company wants to roll back several provisions of workers’ previous contract, including premium pay for weekend work and seniority-based layoffs during slowdowns at the plant. 3M also wants to reduce its contribution to workers’ 401(k) retirement plans – and the power to force workers to take extra shifts without paying overtime wages, even on scheduled days off.

In addition to picketing outside their plant, Steelworkers have rallied outside 3M’s headquarters in Maplewood and marched together in community parades. Last month, they voted to authorize their leadership to call a strike if necessary.

The contract proposal voted down Monday came without a recommendation from the local’s bargaining team.

“We left it up to people to vote on their own,” Schanks said. “It was, in my 30 years of working at 3M, the highest turnout for a contract vote I’ve ever seen. These guys are holding tough.”

Their previous contract with the company has expired, but the two sides have agreed to extend the agreement, in seven-day increments, as long as negotiations continue. They are scheduled to meet with a federal mediator Oct. 11.

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‘On the ropes,’ 3M’s Cottage Grove workers say they’re ready to strike

September 21, 2016 by

Steelworkers who staff 3M's Cottage Grove plant picket outside corporate headquarters in Maplewood.

Steelworkers who staff 3M’s Cottage Grove plant picket outside corporate headquarters in Maplewood.

 

UPDATE 9/29/16 – United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 announced on its Facebook page that its members will vote on a contract proposal from the company, reached during bargaining Monday.

The local is withholding details of the proposal until the ratification vote Oct. 3, but acknowledged that it made some concessions to the company:

“You all know the company we work for. You know that they didn’t spend all day with us apologizing for the last 3 months. You know that they didn’t see the error in their ways, and offer us a contract with no takeaways.”

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Frustrated by management’s cuts-only approach to contract talks, Steelworkers employed at 3M’s chemicals plant in Cottage Grove voted overwhelmingly Sept. 1 to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike if necessary.

But members of United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 aren’t waiting for a strike to call out 3M publicly.

For the second time this month, workers staged informational picketing outside 3M’s corporate campus in Maplewood today. They have picketed the Cottage Grove plant several times in recent weeks, and union leaders say picketing will continue until workers get the contract they deserve.

“We’re serious,” Local 11-00418 President Mike Schanks said. “We’re not going to give up without a fight.”

The union represents about 380 workers at 3M’s facility, the largest private employer in Cottage Grove. Their previous contract with the company has expired, but in bargaining Friday the two sides agreed to extend the agreement, in seven-day increments, as long as negotiations continue.

Common ground has been hard to come by in talks so far, and workers say it’s because 3M insists on rolling back several key provisions of their previous contract, including premium pay for weekend work and seniority-based layoffs during slowdowns at the plant.

Additionally, the company wants to reduce its contribution to workers’ 401(k) retirement plans – and the power to force workers to take extra shifts without paying overtime wages, even on scheduled days off.

“Right now if you come in on a day off, it’s automatically time and a half,” Steelworkers staff representative Brian Ecker said. “We have concerns about the safety aspect of working 12-hour shifts and then being forced to work on your day off.”

web-3m-usw2Schanks added: “Half of the facility is a chemical factory. We’re concerned about long hours, injuries and spills.”

So far, the company has shown little interest in meeting the union halfway, refusing to take up several proposals workers thought would be easy asks of the company.

“We actually have a proposal on the table about honorably discharged veterans being granted a day off per year – not even with pay, using their vacation – and they won’t even give us that,” Ecker said. “That’s kind of how this has gone. We’ve been on the ropes pretty hard.”

Schanks laughed at the notion 3M needs concessions out of its Cottage Grove workers to stay profitable.

“They’ve got record profits,” he said. But after so many other manufacturers have picked up and left the area for cheaper labor markets abroad, 3M is “kind of using fear as a tactic.”

“They’re being very greedy this time around,” Schanks said. “They want to take the whole pie and leave us a few crumbs.”

Negotiations are scheduled to resume Saturday and, if necessary, next Monday. Schanks said he doesn’t foresee a strike “as long as progress is being made” at the bargaining table.

To find out when and where union members are picketing the company – and join them on the line – monitor Local 11-00418’s Facebook page.

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