Oregon: Union Authorizes Wilsonville Strike Against Xerox

[Anonymous]

Xerox union authorizes Wilsonville strike after turning down contract offer

Manufacturing workers at Xerox’s Wilsonville campus have given their union the authority to call a strike after voting down the company’s latest contract proposal last Thursday.

The union says no work stoppage is imminent, however, and the two sides are meeting again tomorrow to try to hammer out a resolution to a sticking point over short-term disability payments.The original contract between Xerox and the Service Employees International Union expired in July, but the two sides extended it first to Oct. 9 and then through Oct. 13. Employees are currently working without a contract."The company negotiated and offered the union a contract that is fair and reasonable and one that balances the needs of our employees with the needs of our business," spokesman Bill McKee said in a written statement. He declined to discuss contract details.

SEIU Local 49 represents 183 Xerox employees in Wilsonville, most of them in the company’s solid ink manufacturing group there.Production workers make between $14 and $15 an hour, according to union chief steward Gary Daniels. The new contract under discussion keeps the wage structure largely intact, according to Daniels, but provides some increase to workers at the bottom end of the pay scale.The most contentious issue, according to Daniels, has been a company proposal to reduce short-term disability payments from 80 percent to 60 percent of regular pay. Daniels said nonunion Xerox workers get 100 percent of their pay for the first three months of short-term disability.

Daniels said Xerox — which reported profits of $319 million last quarter — can handle the larger disability payments.Many domestic electronics manufacturers have moved production overseas, but Xerox has kept its production close to its printer design facility in Wilsonville. Daniels said that the company floated the idea of shifting production offshore."I think it’s a viable threat, but people here, they really aren’t scared of that," he said.

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October 20, 2011 at 9:45 AM