Monrovia : Union to Resist Layoffs

Sixteen manufacturing workers laid off from McDonnell Douglas Corp.’s Monrovia plant have vowed to regain their jobs, contending the company wrongfully terminated them based on their relatively high pay.

The workers and their union, the International Assn. of Machinists, say the company skirted contract provisions requiring layoffs to be based on seniority. The workers’ contract expired March 21 but remains in effect until a new one is negotiated.

A McDonnell Douglas spokesman said only that the St. Louis-based aerospace company had followed its contract with manufacturing workers in determining who would be laid off in the wake of a decrease in their workload. Union representative Dennis Layton said the matter will go to arbitration soon.

He said the company wrongfully assumed a letter of understanding it signed with the union, and which expired along with the contract March 21, remained in effect until a new contract is negotiated. That letter, which expired with the contract, allowed McDonnell Douglas to group manufacturing workers into 17 classifications, rather than one.

When grouped into many classifications, Layton said, the company could lay off higher-paid workers earning up to $15 an hour. Typically, he said, union contracts are designed to ensure that lower-paid junior employees are the first to be laid off.

Marking another in a three-year string of about 200 layoffs at the Monrovia plant, the 16 laid-off workers learned of their fate May 28. One had been with the company for 14 years; most had worked there for more than five, Layton said. Each was given a week’s pay and escorted out the door immediately, he said.

Projects at the Monrovia plant, which employs about 900 workers, include work on components of the C-17 cargo plane and a long-range, mast-mounted viewing device used on ships and helicopters.