90-day agreement means workers will be back on job Monday

And just like that, it was over.

A nine-day strike at the former GE Transportation plant in Erie, the largest industrial strike in the nation in at least two years, ended late Wednesday night after hours of bargaining, led by a federal mediator, between Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp. and Locals 506 and 618 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

Wabtec, which absorbed GE Transportation as a wholly-owned subsidiary on Feb. 25, and the union, which represents about 1,700 employees at the Erie plant, have agreed to a 90-day deal that's intended to give the two parties time to negotiate a longer collective bargaining agreement.

Signs of the strike — tents, burn barrels, piles of firewood and stacks of strike signs — were quickly cleaned up Thursday morning by union workers who had spent nine days patrolling the vast perimeter of the Lawrence Park locomotive plant.

Boyd Whitehead, a 60-year-old welder from Sherman, New York, who went to work at GE Transportation in 1977, was outside the plant's Franklin Avenue entrance before 7 a.m. to help clean up. Whitehead, who had gotten word of the settlement from a friend in a 3 a.m. text message, was happy to be there and happy to know he would be going back to work on Monday.

"I think the mood is high. I think everyone is excited to get back to work," said Scott Slawson, president of Local 506, which represents all but a handful of union members at the Erie plant.

Under the terms of the agreement with Wabtec, reached after more than 11 hours of bargaining Wednesday, the union agrees not to strike and the company agrees there will be no permanent layoff or plant closure during the next 90 days.

In exchange, the company agreed to maintain wage rates for existing Wabtec employees and provide a grievance procedure with binding arbitration.

And Wabtec, which has said it needs to be able to schedule mandatory overtime, has agreed over the next 90 days to make that process voluntary with the ability to hire contract employees to meet commitments to customers.

Following the often combative tone of the strike, Slawson sounded a conciliatory tone Thursday as he talked about the settlement and made plans for donating to food banks much of the food the public had donated to the union.

"I think both sides showed a lot of resolve and willingness to find some mutual understanding and we were able to reach a 90-day agreement, which is going to allow the parties to reach a consensus," he said. "Both parties worked very hard to get this done."

Talks are expected to continue next week.

"We have got 90 days. I am pretty optimistic that we can make it happen," Slawson said. "When you talk about the overall package, your wages and benefits, the union has room to navigate through those."

It's clear, however, that one or both parties will have to bend.

Substantial differences remain between the conditions of employment initially established by Wabtec when it took over on Feb. 25 and the conditions that the union says it's willing to accept.

Wages are high on that list. While Wabtec has agreed to continue paying existing workers at their current pay scale — an average of $35 an hour — the company's earlier proposal called for paying new employees and those called back to work what "a competitive wage scale" of $16.75 to $25 an hour.

But the wages would be lower for new employees, at least at first.

Documents included in Wabtec's original proposal calls for phasing in those wages for new employees, starting at 80 percent for the first six months.

In other words, an employee starting a job that paid $16.75 an hour would initially earn $13.40 an hour. A new employee in a job earning a top wage of $25 an hour would actually start at $20 an hour.

The company's desire to be able to schedule workers to mandatory overtime threatens to be another sticking point.

It's an issue that's confounded Mark Zielinski, 61, of Harborcreek Township, who retired a year ago after working for GE Transportation as a pipe fitter.

When the company implemented lean manufacturing methods a number of years ago, "They said it would virtually eliminate overtime. I feel mandatory overtime is a method to cover up poor management," Zielinski said, referring to his experience under the old ownership. "They can't seem to get their act together."

Erie County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper had her own criticisms of GE Transportation in recent years and has said she couldn't imagine a better partner to buy the company than Wabtec.

Dahlkemper, who has been in regular contact with both the union and Wabtec, said Thursday that she was pleased with the settlement.

"I think these sides are actually closer than it looks to the outside person and that both sides want a facility that is successful and grows," she said. "I think their ultimate goals are very similar. I think for the longest time one of the big problems was the GE union did not know the Wabtec management and vice versa. This is going to give them a chance to get to know each other. I have great respect for the leadership on both sides. I think they are going to find a way forward."

Scott Miller, dean of the school of business at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, had similar thoughts.

"From my perch and based on what we see and what is known, I would say it (the 90-day agreement) means they are closer than we might have suspected or closer than even they might have suspected," he said.

Miller sees the settlement as a good thing as he calculates the potential for lost spending power, both by employees and by the company, which has historically sourced materials from local companies.

James Grunke, CEO of the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership, recently took that concern a couple of steps further when he ran the potential for 1,700 lost jobs through some economic modeling software.

If those 1,700 jobs had been eliminated, the loss to the Erie economy would have equaled more than $400 million in lost wages and business-to-business spending and a total loss of more than 5,000 jobs in the community, he said.

On the other hand, he said, adding 500 Wabtec jobs could add $119 million to the local economy.

The numbers show just how high the stakes are as negotiations move forward, he said.

"I've heard a lot of people say 'I don't have a dog in this fight.' We all have a dog in this fight because we live in this community," Grunke said.

Jerry Servidio, 66, who retired from GE Transportation two years ago after spending 20 years with the company, joined a practice picket on Feb. 22 and then joined strikers on the picket line on Feb. 27.

"I believe in the union and the benefits of being in the union, such as a pension and good decent wages," he said.

"I think this was a really emotional time for them," he said of his fellow union members. "Apparently, these issues are really meaningful to people right now."

Aside from a joint statement issued after the 90-day agreement was announced, a spokesperson from Wabtec could not be reached for comment Thursday.

It seems fair to conclude, however, that a strike was not the way the company would have wanted to begin its affiliation with GE Transportation.

Erie Mayor Joe Schember hopes the strike turns out to be little more than a speed bump.

"I'm very happy that they came to this agreement," he said. "Now the workers can go back and production can start again, which will be good for our economy. It's very encouraging."

In the long run, Servidio said he hopes some good comes from the strike.

"It's not the best thing that could happen in Erie, but I think it's something that had to happen," he said.

Jim Martin can be reached at 870-1668 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ETNMartin.

LISTEN: Q&A with George Morgan III, treasurer of the Erie chapter of the NAACP