Staff Reports
NS&D Monitor
8/28/15
Pantex Workers Vote to Strike
Union workers at the Pantex nuclear warhead assembly/disassembly plant in Texas voted late Thursday to strike. If the walkout is authorized by the Metal Trades Department in Washington, about 1,200 workers will go on strike at midnight Friday – when their current agreement expires.
Clarence Rashada, president of the Metal Trades Council at Pantex, said a two-thirds majority voted to strike. He said he was waiting to hear from the Metal Trades Department on the strike authorization.
The Metal Trades Council has negotiated with Consolidated Nuclear Security, the government’s managing contractor at Pantex since early this year. Earlier this month, the Pantex union members rejected CNS’ “best-and-final” contract proposal by what was called an “overwhelming” vote.
CNS has not yet released a comment on the situation.
Rashada said there had been additional negotiations since the vote in early August.
He said union negotiators submitted a counterproposal to CNS’ previous “best and final” and the company responded with another best and final.
The last offer from CNS contained some significant changes and adopted some of the union requests, Rashada said. However, the CNS proposal was rejected again by the workers during a Thursday night vote. After that vote, the membership voted on whether to strike.
Rashada said the Pantex workers are angry about the CNS changes on benefits, and he said he’s not sure if they would approve anything that included changes to their benefits.
“It wasn’t the best contract, but it was better than the initial (proposal),” he said.
He said the Metal Trades Department is reviewing the company’s final contract offer.
