Bedford Park, IL is the place to be

Industrial strikes are rare enough today. So when two occur within a few months of one another and literally a few minutes’ walk from one another, it’s worth paying some attention. This is what’s happening in Bedford Park, an industrial suburb just south of Chicago. The town is completely dominated by a large industrial park with a giant CSX intermodal terminal. First about 140 UAW members struck for 65 days, beginning on February 22, at Metal-Matic. Just around the corner, on 73^rd Street, IUE-CWA members at Northstar Aerospace went on strike on June 5. The purpose of this article is to explain these two strikes.

Metal-Matic

Metal-Matic makes specialized industrial steel tubing. It’s owned by PTC Alliance. The plant was only organized in June 2021 by UAW Local 558. So this was a strike for a first contract. Delaying and blocking the negotiation of a first contract, following a union win in a NLRB election, is an increasingly common management tactic. Obviously wages and health care were at center stage during the negotiations. But another issue came to play an important role at the bargaining table. This was cross training. Many of the machines at Metal-Matic are large and require considerable training to operate safely. Management wanted workers to be trained on more than one machine. In fact, wage increases were tied to this cross training. This was not a benign move to increase workforce skills. Its purpose was to increase overtime. If a worker on one machine was sick, a worker on another machine who had just finished their shift could be made to stay for overtime to cover the other worker’s shift.

The predominantly Latino workforce maintained the picket line 24/7. This meant braving some terrible Chicago weather. Perhaps ominously for management, the strike began during a torrential rain storm with sheets of rain splashing up from the ground. This weather led to a sort of tough pride on the picket. “Today is nothing, you should have been here when the night shift had to stop the tent blowing away.” Honking was constant from the never-ending stream of trucks using the huge CSX yard. In a characteristic of all Chicago strikes, UPS Teamster drivers from Local 705 refused to cross the picket line. The picket had the mood of a classic old style strike with burn barrels and Scabby the rat.

The strike ended on April 28. The new contract, which was overwhelmingly approved, contained improved language on wage parity and pushed back employer concessions.

Northstar Aerospace

On June 5, the picket line went up at Northstar Aerospace. Here there is a well- established union, Local 14430 of the IUE-CWA. The IUE-CWA is the industrial section of the Communication Workers. Northstar makes helicopter engines and parts, particularly for Chinook and Apache military helicopters. This work requires great specialization and training, which the workers take great pride in. This leads to a feeling of self-confidence and group unity. It also leads to a low turn-over among the workers, with many workers having decades in the plant.

The strike started with a rally of about 50 workers. Powerful speeches were given by IUE International President Carl Kennebrew, International Rep and Chief Negotiator Richard Shorter and Local President Dave Gerard. Gerard caught the mood of the strikers when he said, “You just can’t farm out this kind of labor. These workers are trained for years, and their work is scrutinized and certified to the highest standards. The contract offers from Northstar have been laughable. We want fair wages and respect, it’s that simple.” The two sides were still at the table when this article was written.

Solidarity

What can we learn from these two strikes? Solidarity is the main lesson. Workers at both sites have greatly appreciated the already mentioned Teamster honoring of the picket line and solidarity visits from UAW Local 551 at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant. In a particularly important move, UAW members from Metal-Matic visited the Northstar picket line bringing supplies and solidarity.

Secondly, these two strikes show the blue-collar labor movement may be down, but it is certainly not out. If we can paraphrase Che Guevara’s famous statement about the Vietnam war, “Create two, three, many, Bedford Parks”.