Striking Caterpillar Workers Ratify Contract Offer

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Saturday, August 18, 2012

Striking Caterpillar Workers Ratify Contract Offer

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Workers who had been striking at a Caterpillar hydraulic parts factory in Joliet, Ill., voted on Friday to ratify a proposed six-year contract that contained almost all of the concessions the company had demanded.

In ratifying the deal, the strikers acted against recommendations made by leaders of their union local, who had objected strongly to the pact. The agreement was negotiated by union leaders from the district level to end a showdown that had gone on for months without significant progress toward a resolution.

The fight between Caterpillar and the International Association of Machinists was considered a test case in American labor relations, in part because Caterpillar was driving such a hard bargain when its business was thriving.

The strike by 780 members of the machinists began on May 1 as workers rejected Caterpillar’s demand for a six-year wage freeze for two-thirds of the factory’s workers — those hired before May 2005 — at a time when the company was reporting record profits. Caterpillar argued that wages for the higher-paid workers exceeded market levels.

The deal the workers ratified contained far-reaching concessions, including the wage freeze, a pension freeze for the more senior two-thirds of the workers and a steep increase in what the workers pay toward their health care insurance. It also called for a $3,100 ratification bonus, which union officials said Caterpillar agreed on Thursday to increase from $1,000.

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