A second vote is being taken Thursday in Fond du Lac. Union workers at Mercury Marine are voting on a contract containing wage concessions. The union rejected the package a few weeks ago. The company responded by saying it would move the jobs to a non-union plant in Oklahoma. Now, after a bit of haggling, the two sides have agreed to proceed with another vote. WUWM’s Marti Mikkelson has more on the dramatic turn of events, as they’ve consumed the people of Fond du Lac, Mercury Marine being its biggest employer.
The developments in the past two weeks between Mercury Marine and union workers have been unusual, but not unprecedented according to John Heywood. He’s an economics professor at UW-Milwaukee. He says there was probably a breakdown in communication, and union members did not understand what they were voting for the first time.
“Unions and management are always involved in trying to divide a pie and there’s going to be conflict. But, we hope there’s enough information that sensible decisions can be made by each party. But, by the time you go to a second or third vote it’s clear that there hasn’t been good information,” Heywood says.
Heywood says nobody knows what happened behind the scenes that led to the union’s overwhelming first vote to reject the contract. Mercury Marine had threatened to move to Oklahoma if the package was not accepted. The professor says there have been cases where unions have tried to call a company’s bluff.
“Often in other circumstances in collective bargaining it is the case that one party doesn’t believe the other and doesn’t believe that their last best offer is their last best offer and that’s the kind of circumstance you want to avoid,” Heywood says.
Heywood says there have indeed been cases where the company was bluffing, and did not move when the union rejected concessions. Nobody is certain how close Mercury Marine came to leaving Fond du Lac after the union rejected the company’s first contract offer. But, the professor says it appears staying put is a viable option, now that the union is voting again. Heywood says the turn of events signifies a compromise that bodes well for the community.
“What you hope is you don’t have to go through this circumstance because obviously this has been gut wrenching for not just for the firm and the workers but the community and the entire state. Anything that results in the parties continuing to communicate and trying to find something that’s beneficial to both sides would be very welcome,” Heywood says.
But what the turn of events at Mercury Marine could signal, according to Heywood, is that unions across the country are continuing to decline in clout. For decades, membership has been dwindling, so has the number of strikes unions lead. He says we could hear of more cases where workers have to accept huge concessions in order to keep jobs.
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