LOCAL
Lockout to end as Machinists approve new Triumph contract
The following is from Machinists Union District Lodge 751:
“We are proud of the fight we conducted,” the union’s negotiating committee told its members. “We are proud of every member’s efforts to stand together, and we are proud to be associated with you.”
The union’s 400 members have been locked out at Triumph since May 10. Some 93 percent of union members at Triumph had voted on May 9 to authorize a strike at the company, but the company moved to lock them out before the strike could start.
● Over the next three years, the contract cuts in half the 12.5 percent gap in pay between workers hired before 2006 and those hired after, by giving raises to the newer workers. In addition, all workers will get lump-sum bonuses totaling $7,000 spread out over the first three years of the contract; in the fourth year, all workers will get a 3-percent raise.
● The contract establishes a new company-funded retirement savings plan for workers hired since 2013, which will be in addition to their already-existing 401(k) plans.
● The contract keeps the current health care cost-sharing in place for the next four years, with caps on how much costs can go up each year.
● The contract provides for a process that will allow the union and the company to jointly explore alternatives to outsourcing work now done by workers in Spokane.
“What has happened here over the past six weeks is a shining example of the power of union membership where workers have the right to bargain with their employer,” IAM 751 President Jon Holden said.
“Our members stood together and supported each other,” he said. “By doing that, they won a better contract that improves the quality of life for everyone who works at Triumph Composites. In the process, they made the Spokane community and its economy just that much stronger.”