Here is the article that was in the St Paul Paper this morning. Good luck finding 850 manufacturing jobs in Fond du Lac, Wi that will pay you 20.00 per hour. I’m not sure how they come to 5900 lost jobs including related businesses. I would like to hear from one of the union workers who rejected this deal try to understand their reasoning. 
As for the changes in pensions that would have made retirement unaffordable… How many people on this site are encouraged about their prospects of having an affordable retirement?
Entire article.
Quote:
Mercury Marine workers reject firm’s final offer
Vote puts 850 jobs on chopping block
Associated Press
Updated: 08/23/2009 11:23:37 PM CDT
Union workers at Mercury Marine put their jobs at risk Sunday when they rejected a package of wage and benefit concessions the boat engine maker said it needed or it would move their work to a nonunion plant in Oklahoma.
Union leaders did not immediately release Sunday’s tally but said the vote was “overwhelming” to reject what the company called its final offer.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 1947, represents 850 workers at Mercury Marine, the largest employer in the eastern Wisconsin city of Fond du Lac and the world’s largest manufacturer of boat and recreational marine engines.
Mercury Marine had asked for changes to a four-year contract it signed a year ago. The company said workers would see no pay cuts under its proposal, but the union said workers were asked give up 2 percent pay raises in each of the last two years of the contract. The average hourly wage now is about $20, the union said. The proposal also called for lower wages for new hires and workers called back from layoffs, and changes in pension benefits that workers said would have made retirement unaffordable.
Mercury Marine issued a statement after the vote saying it will move many of its Fond du Lac manufacturing operations to its plant in Stillwater, Okla., over the next two to three years. The company said it will continue to operate the Fond du Lac facility for now under the terms and conditions of the existing contract, which expires in
2012.
“This has been a very difficult and stressful process for all involved,” Mark Schwabero, president of Mercury Marine, said in a statement. “We will work closely with our team in Fond du Lac to develop and communicate a transition plan for this 24- to 36-month process.”
Mercury Marine spokesman Steve Fleming said last week that if the offer was rejected, the union and company could resume talks and hold another vote this coming Saturday, but its offer would not change.
Local 1947 President Mark Zillges said Friday there would be no further negotiations. He did not immediately return a phone call Sunday seeking comment.
Fond du Lac City Manager Thomas Herre called the vote “a huge disappointment.”
“Time will tell what it means,” he said. “On the face of it, certainly nothing good is going to happen as a result of turning it down today.”
Mercury Marine’s MerCruiser plant in Oklahoma, where Fond du Lac’s production jobs could go, employs about 380 people.
The company, founded in 1939 as Kiekhaefer Corp., of Cedarburg, also has manufacturing operations in Tulsa, Okla., as well as South Carolina, Florida, Mexico, Japan, United Kingdom, Belgium and China.
If Mercury Marine, a subsidiary of Lake Forest, Ill.-based Brunswick Corp., shuts down the Fond du Lac plant, it would mean an annual loss of $353 million in workers’ earnings and an additional 5,900 lost jobs due to the impact on suppliers, government and business in the area, according to the Fond du Lac County Economic Development Corp.
There’s been a steady erosion of employment at the Fond du Lac factory due to slow boat sales and the poor economy. Two years ago, nearly half of Mercury Marine’s 6,400 workers worldwide were employed in Fond du Lac. In February, 85 jobs were cut and the plant shut down for two weeks. In 2008, hundreds of jobs were cut and production shut down for three weeks.
I sure hope so.
