Avondale closing

Labor joins effort to save Avondale jobs.

Avondale to close in 2013

Northrop-Grumman announced Tuesday its intent to close New Orleans area Avondale shipyards and consolidate the 5000 jobs at its larger shipyard at Pascagoula, Mississippi. Avondale lost a union election in the early 1990's, ultimately the union was certified and the shipyard was acquired by Northrop-Grumman. At the time I remember thinking how this ultimately made Avondale much more vulnerable to closure. Now, by sometime in 2013 Avondale is scheduled to be gone. Non-union status was a valuable protector for this shipyard, but now its just an expendable unionized facility.

Canada loves it some EFCA?

We have previously posted, here, here, here, here and here about Canadian data usefulness as a predictor of what EFCA might produce in the United States. The Economic Policy Institute has released data on first contract arbitration in Manitoba, the Province with the most EFCA-like FCA provisions. The small sample study notes that 87.5% (14 of 16) businesses who engaged in FCA between 2001 and 2007, remain in business. The AFL-CIO blog touts this as "evidence" EFCA is not a jobs killer. That a business remains in business is of course a positive fact, but really provides little proof that the business is no worse off than if it had not been required to submit to an imposed collective bargaining agreement. How successful could the 16 have been without this burden, would the two failed enterprises survived? The news in this piece is not that FCA is good, but rather that it was used only 14 times in 7 years.

Unionized plant closing

Unionized clothing manufacturer Hugo Boss is closing its Cleveland, Ohio plant. The move will put 300+ Workers United/SEIU workers on the street.

IAM seeks to enjoin Pratt closures

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed a friend of court brief in supporting a Machinists' union effort to enjoin Pratt and Whitney from moving Connecticut operations to Georgia and Asia. In a Section 301 action, the union claims the company's promise to make a serious effort to keep the work in Connecticut, a promise contained in the current labor agreement, was violated. Moreover, the union contends, the Company never intended to keep the promise. The union's breach of contract action seeks to delay the plant closures for the remainder of the existing contract, at which point they hope to be in a position to bargain for a deal to prevent closure. Trial begins today.

Unionized plant closed

The New York Times has a long story about the misfortunes of the 133 year old Simmons Bedding Company. The first three pages are about the leveraged buyout/private equity partners who owned the company. The final page talks of the effect the closure of one of its Georgia plants had on its unionized workforce. This is a sad story on many levels, but it de-bunks the myth that unionization means job security.

Manufacturer closes after lockout.

Peterbilt, a manufacturer of heavy duty trucks has shut down its unionized Nashville plant after a long labor dispute and lockout which began in June of 2008. Operations will be consolidated at its non-union facility in Denton Texas. My labor law class covered plant closure last week. I think I'll discuss this case tonight.