Allan Appel Photo
Sargent’s workers gather before dawn at Sports Haven.
Neither the horses nor the dogs were running on the rug-sized darkened screens high above. The bar was closed, not a boxing match in sight.
Yet the lights were on, Danish and hot coffee were served, and Sports Haven was hopping even before sun-up Tuesday morning.
That’s because it was game-on for the 264 members of Local 243 of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), which represents workers at the Assa Abloy/Sargent hardware plant.
Nearly all the membership was gathered Tuesday morning to confirm and witness the swearing in of the local’s new president, Wayne Morrison. He took the gavel as president of the local from Ray Pompano, who is retiring from the union presidency after 31 years, the longest service of any UE local chief in the country. (Click here the story of Pompano’s history at Sargent.) Pompano presided at the meeting until Barbara Resnick, a lawyer representative from the UE international, swore in Morrison, his new officers, and their executive board.
The election took place on Nov. 14, when Morrison prevailed over his chief opponent Tony Stewart by a vote of 159 to 80.
Pompano said that 248 people voted out of a total membership of 264. “That is unbelievable,” he said, complimenting his membership, whom he repeatedly referred to as “brothers and sisters.”
“It sends a message to the company that we are united,” he added.
Fiorentino,Tondalo and Morrison take the oath.
Local 243’s contract expires in March. Morrison said his chief challenge as new president and leader of the negotiating team in the upcoming contract talks with Assa Abloy/Sargent is to preserve and maintain the health care benefits in the contract. Older employees have 100 percent of their care covered, newer employees, 80 percent.
“It’s our sacred cow,” he said.
Wearing his blue and yellow union windbreaker, Morrison greeted members as they filed into Sports Haven and encouraged them to partake of the coffee and pastries he’d brought. He said that as chief steward for 14 years under Pompano he felt prepared for his new responsibilities. “I’ve been all over the country, at strikes on picket lines from Chicago to North Carolina, to D.C., to Maryland,” he said. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
Pompano, in brief remarks before he passed the gavel, said Morrison has indeed “done all he has had to do” to earn his position.
Executive board members Cannon, John Cronan, and Horner, who collectively have been with the company for 112 years.
Even though the relationship between the union and the company in this instance has been a model of civility and success, Morrison said that “it’s getting tougher each year.”
Putting pressure on that relationship — and many union-management relationships in the country — is the planned 2017 phase in of an excise “Cadillac tax” on higher-paying health care plans like Sargent’s, under the federal Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”). That excise tax will dramatically drive up costs for employers (many of them local governments and older-line union manufacturers like Sargent) or else press them to slash hard-won health benefits. Morrison said it’s unclear how that will affect the negotiations set to begin with Assa/Abloy in February.
Mitchell Cannon, a 28-year employee in the shipping department, was elected to the union’s executive board. He agreed that maintaining health care benefits is and should be the number one goal of the contract negotiations.
After that, he listed “a raise and adding to the pension” as the second and third goals.
In his remarks after his swearing in, Morrison thanked Pompano for his service and for his tutelage over the years, which included the advice never to make promises.
“I’m going to stray from that advice,” he said — beyond this promise: “I promise to fight for the rank and file. You may not like the outcome, but I’ll fight. That’s what I do best. It’s time for us, sisters and brothers, to stop the infighting. Save the fighting for the company. It’s going to be a tough contract” negotiation.
Allan Appel Photo
Pompano, right, swore in Morrison, left, at Sports Haven Tuesday.
Nominations were opened for those who wanted to serve on the negotiating committee. Executive board member Mitch Cannon was nominated and accepted. Ron Horner, also an executive board member, declined.
To relax, Horner said, he used to come to the boxing matches screened at Sports Haven, but no longer.
He declined to be on the contract negotiating committee, he said, because “I don’t want the stress.”
In addition to to Morrison, the other officers elected include: Steve Saunders as vice president; Chris Fiorentino as chief steward; Anna Tondalo as recording secretary; and the treasurer, Frank Fusco.