Strike Ends at Two Plants After 11 Days : Rohr Machinists Approve Three-Year Contract
Striking machinists at Rohr Industries plants in Chula Vista and Riverside voted overwhelmingly Thursday to accept the company’s most recent contract offer and return to work after 11 days on the picket lines.
The 4,500 members of the International Assn. of Machinists, at meetings in San Diego and San Bernardino, voted by an 89% majority to accept the new terms reached by negotiators Wednesday. Rohr spokesman Dick Dalton said machinists began returning to work on the graveyard shift late Thursday. He said that today will be a “transition day” and, by Monday, plants should be back in normal production.
Tom Hurd, business representative of Local 755 in Chula Vista, said that Rohr negotiators refused to grant amnesty to 10 workers arrested during picket line clashes last week in Riverside. Fourteen Riverside pickets were arrested during the second day of the 11-day strike after five police officers were injured by rocks, bottles, a pellet gun and a steel ball bearing. Rohr spokesmen said that pictures were taken of the altercations at the Riverside plant and 10 people implicated will be fired when they report to work. No arrests occurred at Chula Vista, the headquarters plant of the 8,000-employee aerospace firm.
James Sprout, president of Local 964 in Riverside, said the union will fight any firing of members through grievance procedures and through the courts. The union, he said, also has film showing assaults on pickets by company security personnel.
“There was fault on both sides,” Sprout said, “and I imagine this matter will be settled by our lawyers and theirs.”
Sprout said that union officials recommended acceptance of the Rohr contract to membership at meetings Thursday morning in San Diego’s Balboa Park and the National Orange Show pavilion in San Bernardino. He expressed some disappointment with the contract terms, which he said failed come up to industry standards.
The new three-year contract includes wage increases of 10% the first year and 6% in each of the two subsequent years. The first increase will be paid in April, company executives said.
The contract also contains improvements in medical and dental benefits and life insurance, and a $24-a-month pension increase.
Before the new contract, salaries for machinists union members at Rohr averaged $26,000 a year without overtime pay. The new contract will add about $5,720 to workers’ paychecks over the term of the contract, Dalton said.
Rohr is a major subcontractor for aerospace industry giants, producing engine parts and other aircraft components including parts for Grumman’s F-14 Tomcat jet fighter. The company also manufactures rocket motor casings and other rocket parts.
The machinists’ strike, the first at Rohr since 1971, began at 12:01 a.m. Feb. 16 at the expiration of the machinists’ contract.
Chula Vista Local 755 spokesman Hurd said the new agreement was “a major victory” for the union, unlike the 1971 settlement that came after a bitter three-month strike.
