Members of United Steelworkers Local Union 1-689, working in deactivation and demolition at the Department of Energy’s former gaseous diffusion plant complex in Ohio, approved a two-year contract extension Monday with Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth.
The local union’s president, Herman Potter, declined to provide a vote count. Turnout was light but those who did vote went “overwhelmingly high for the contract,” Potter said by email.
The new pact will run from March 29, 2021 until March 29, 2023, which is how long Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth will be on the job if DOE exercises both remaining six-month options on the incumbent’s deal. The pact, awarded in 2011, and is now worth about $4.4 billion, with the options.
Key elements of the new labor agreement extension include: 3% wage hike; establishment of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S., as a company holiday; agreement to continue working toward a reduction in force policy acceptable to management and labor.
The United Steelworkers (USW) bargaining committee submitted the contract extension for membership ratification after it accepted management’s final offer on Oct. 13, Local Union-1-689 said on its website.
Prior to the deal just ratified, union members had continued working on short-term extensions of an agreement that technically expired March 29.
“The cards were against us” and that includes recent COVID-19-induced policy changes, Potter said in his email.
