In the case of Kohler, those improve­ments for work­ers were achieved by endur­ing a 1934 mas­sacre (in which two work­ers were killed) and a nine-year strike from 1956 to 1965, the longest in U.S. his­to­ry. Long­time Kohler work­ers like retiree Lar­ry Klein rec­og­nize the stakes:

Kohler is seek­ing to impose a dras­tic set of con­ces­sions as it nego­ti­ates with Unit­ed Auto Work­ers Local 833 on a new con­tract: a five-year wage freeze for those cur­rent­ly work­ing, the estab­lish­ment of a three-tiered work­force, and the right to employ caste of ​“per­ma-temps,” as they are called else­where, for up to 25% of the total hours worked. The per­ma-temps would earn 35% less than cur­rent work­ers, be denied from union rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and exclud­ed from health­care cov­er­age until they had worked 1,000 hours.

The Kohler Co., the giant man­u­fac­tur­er of plumb­ing and oth­er prod­ucts, has become the lat­est prof­itable Wis­con­sin cor­po­ra­tion to seek to exploit the reces­sion by flush­ing decades of hard-won union gains down the drain.

What our fore­fa­thers gave to us and fought for is com­plete­ly being thrown out the win­dow. Union-bust­ing is what it is – get the employ­ees against the employees.

Kohler is fol­low­ing much the same mod­el as exec­u­tives at two oth­er solid­ly-prof­itable and high­ly vis­i­ble firms, Mer­cury Marine and Harley David­son and man­aged to extort mas­sive con­ces­sions from their unions, as cov­ered here, here, here, and here. (As a fam­i­ly-owned cor­po­ra­tion, Kohler is not required to divulge data on com­pa­ny prof­its and exec­u­tive pay)



UAW LOCAL 833 ALREADY WAG­ING PUB­LIC FIGHT



UAW mem­bers are out­raged by the effort to roll back union gains and to dri­ve a divi­sive stake into the heart of the union, all with­out any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion except glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness. ​“They’ve nev­er claimed that they’re going broke,” said Dave Strohschoeb, a trustee of Unit­ed Auto Work­ers Local 833. ​“It’s always about competitiveness.”

Nego­ti­a­tions are ongo­ing; union and com­pa­ny offi­cials are due back at the bar­gain­ing table on Mon­day, the She­boy­gan Press report­ed. Both sides agreed to extend the exist­ing UAW-Kohler con­tract last week in hopes of strik­ing a deal, which would affect 1,937 work­ers in She­boy­gan coun­ty.



​“Under their pro­pos­al, they could lay me off and bring me back and pay me the same wages I made in 1997, but it’s not 1997,” said Tim Tol­man, 47, a 15-year employ­ee who became a tem­po­rary Kohler work­er last year fol­low­ing a com­pa­ny­wide lay­off. ​“I think it’s total­ly unfair.”



Unlike at Mer­cury Marine and Harley Davi­son, Kohler’s demands were greet­ed ear­ly on by Local 833 dis­plays of sol­i­dar­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port. The con­ces­sion pack­age was answered with a mas­sive infor­ma­tion­al pick­et line held by the local on Wednes­day that drew ​“thou­sands” of sup­port­ers, accord­ing to area newspapers.

If Kohler per­sists in its demands, it may be bring on yet anoth­er war with its workers.