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September 6, 2009
FOND DU LAC, Wis. - A Wisconsin boat engine maker says it won't move 850 jobs to Oklahoma now that the company's union has approved a wage freeze and other concessions.
The union representing workers at Mercury Marine Inc. approved deep concessions Friday in the third round of balloting, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Mercury had threatened to move from Fond du Lac to a non-union shop in Stillwater, Okla., after the union overwhelmingly rejected an Aug. 23 offer.
The union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, called off a second round of balloting Aug. 29, saying the company's proposal had expired.
Amid the economic downturn, Mercury's sales have fallen to their lowest level in decades, the Journal Sentinel said. "Comprehensive changes to wages, benefits and operational flexibility are necessary for Mercury to effectively compete in a smaller and fundamentally changed marketplace," Mercury Marine President Mark Schwabero said in a statement after the vote.
But some union members said the company had asked for more concessions than it needed, while older union members in particular did not want to give up progress won in years of negotiation.
With rampant unemployment, however, the need for jobs prevailed in the vote, whose tally was not released, and members approved a wage freeze, higher healthcare costs and a 30 percent pay cut for new hires and for workers called back from layoffs.
"When the time comes to fight for your job and your family, that's what you are going to do," said Fred Toth Jr., a 46-year-old Mercury employee.
Elected officials had expressed concern that the loss of the Mercury jobs would have been devastating.
"We had to win this one. We just could not become the Detroit of Wisconsin," said Fond du Lac County Executive Allen Buechel.
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