Rally for Peterbilt workers
UAW raises the pressure to end the lockout
In a tactic to pressure the company and raise public awareness of the lockout of 750 workers at the Peterbilt truck plant in Nashville, Tenn., elected officials, military veterans and supporters from UAW local unions in the Nashville area rallied on Oct. 3 at Local 1832, which represents the Peterbilt workers.
“If it affects my family, it affects everybody's family,” said David Haley, who's worked at Peterbilt for 32 years, “It's a ripple effect that affects everybody.”
Peterbilt, a division of PACCAR, builds heavy trucks. When the UAW entered contract talks with Peterbilt in August, it seemed the company came to the table with a union-busting agenda. Company negotiators offered a 22-cents-per-hour raise that is less than the rate of inflation, then demanded a 300 percent increase in worker-paid health care costs and a 600 percent increase in prescription drug costs.
Peterbilt has turned a profit each of the past 62 years, and last year PACCAR executives were given $2.4 million in raises. Yet they offered workers a contract full of concessions.
When the contract ran out without a new agreement, Peterbilt locked the workers out.
“From a bargaining perspective, when we don't reach agreement the normal course is to extend the old agreement and continue to bargain,” said Gary Casteel, director of Region 8 where the Peterbilt plant is located. “Or you go to mediation. We offered to do all of these things. For them to lock us out, it's got nothing to do with collective bargaining; it's a strategy to break a local union. Lockout is a very seldom-used tactic. It's never used by anyone who wants to get an agreement.”
The UAW is putting pressure in other areas to end the lockout and get members back to work. The union is communicating with PACCAR President David Hovind and the board of directors.
Even though the United States is facing tough economic times, PACCAR was the only profitable heavy truck manufacturer in the country last year.
“The more they make. the greedier they get,”
said Haley. “It's just plain corporate greed.”
