The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), July 8, 2007, Sunday

Copyright 2007 The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)

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The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky)

July 8, 2007 Sunday

METRO Edition

SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. 1D

HEADLINE: Tensions high as foundry strike hits second month

BYLINE: Jere Downs jdowns@courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal

BODY:

Union's talks for

1st contract stall

By Jere Downs

jdowns@courier-journal.com

{}The Courier-Journal

SHELBYVILLE, Ky. More than a month into a United Steelworkers strike, a stick horse stands sentinel on the picket line outside Ohio Valley Aluminum.

Named for onetime Kentucky Derby hopeful UD Ghetto, the horse represents what striking workers say is wrong at their foundry.

The foundry's owner, Interlock Industries, reported $711 million in revenue from metal fabricating plants and taxicab franchises across the United States last year . Its workers say they lost their estimated $2,500 annual bonus, as well as their longtime Thanksgiving dinner, a Christmas dinner and a $25 Kroger holiday gift card.

As the Mackin family of Louisville, the company's owner, was grooming UD Ghetto to win the Kentucky Cup Juvenile race last year, workers who earn on average $15 an hour tending blast furnaces and sawing aluminum ingots voted last August to unionize.

"About the time they cut our holiday dinners, they posted a picture of the horse in the break room," 64-year-old trucker Harold Johnson said. "That is why we got our own horse out front."

While the union triumphed in a 62-22 vote in August, contract negotiations broke down and a strike began June 1.

Striking workers want all employees to join the United Steelworkers and pay dues.

Interlock Industries management presided over by brothers Jeffrey, Michael, Jay and Craig Mackin want none of that.

"This is the one sticking point," company lawyer Edwin S. Hopson said. The Mackin family "feels strongly that employees should not force people to join."

Now workers and management are locked in a struggle over a first contract, a battle that foils 40 percent of new unions nationwide, Cornell University labor professor Richard W. Hurd said.

Half-century-old labor laws require only that an employer bargain in good faith. The National Labor Relations Act imposes no limits or penalties to ensure a contract is reached after workers democratically vote to join a union. Just last month, changes proposed for that national labor law stumbled.

The Employee Free Choice Act requires unions and management to submit to binding arbitration within months after bargaining begins, among other measures. The new law passed the House of Representatives. In the Senate, the law fell nine votes short of the 60-vote threshold needed to proceed to a final vote.

There is little likelihood that the Employee Free Choice Act will see action before the presidential election, Hurd said. The Mackins' objection to an all-union shop "demonstrates they really don't want a union at all," he added.

Across the street from the plant just off Interstate 64, United Steelworkers Local 1693 members are digging in.

"We are at war," said local president Kevin Baird, in his fourth term representing about 2,000 steelworkers at plants around Louisville. "This is the worst company I have dealt with in 15 years. They've got deep pockets. They are tyrants."

Privately owned Interlock Industries does not disclose profits. The firm's Web site boasts revenues have grown from $290 million in 2000, when patriarch Joseph Leo Mackin Jr. died, to $711 million in 2006.

Of that, 55 percent of revenue comes from Ohio Valley Aluminum plants in Shelbyville, Boonville, Ind., and Niles, Ohio. The Mackin family derives 41 percent of revenue from sheet-metal manufacturing of roofing, gutters and siding. The rest comes from Yellow Cab services in the Kentucky cities of Louisville, Owensboro and Hopkinsville, plus Indianapolis.

Still, last year was a tough year and annual bonuses had to go, Hopson added.

"It is not like they put hundreds of millions in their pocket," he said of the Mackins, who also operate the Lucky Seven Stable in Ocala, Fla., and the Mackin Foundation in Louisville. "Last year was a horrible year for Ohio Valley Aluminum. The company was losing money."

Good-paying jobs are scarce in Shelby County. Until Leo Mackin died, longtime workers say, employee relations with management were healthy.

"When the old man was living, we got treated good," said Donald Jamison, 69, a forklift driver who said he has worked at the plant for 50 years.

John Young, 43, made $14.64 an hour pouring molten aluminum in the plant, where the temperature on the shop floor runs 110 degrees, he said. Young's paychecks netted him about $1,300 a month, after a $420 health-care deduction for his wife and two children.

"We would get a 3percent raise and our insurance would go up 4percent," Young said.

Tony Mahoney, 36, made $14.10 hourly slicing aluminum ingots for the last decade. He wants sick days, personal days, scheduled breaks and respect.

"I worked 136 days without a day off," Mahoney said. "We got to see our way through it."

As the walkout enters its sixth week, a strike fund keeps picketing workers current on car and house payments, Baird said. The union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, asserting that Ohio Valley Aluminum has refused to bargain, changed work rules and harassed employees to cross the picket line, among other claims. A union letter-writing blitz to customers also claims the company is shipping poor- quality goods.

Meanwhile, Ohio Valley Aluminum is investigating paint balloons that Hopson said were thrown at aluminum logs hauling out of the plant last Sunday. Court records show the company won a restraining order to limit picket activities and a court order citing Jamison for contempt for following a non-striking worker home.

After Jamison followed his car to a nearby shopping center, pouring operator Ralph O'Neil states in his affidavit that he told Jamison he "could not afford to take off and I needed my insurance."

As workers waited in lawn chairs on the worn grass outside the foundry last week, talk turned to the best place to buy day-old bread and odd jobs like landscaping.

"If Christmastime comes and we are still here, I will begin to get a little worried," trucker Johnson said.

In June, Ohio Valley Aluminum "shipped everything they had an order for," Hopson said.

"For them to criticize our quality is unbelievable," he said. "Their co-workers stayed on the job."

Trucking has been contracted to J.B. Hunt, a non-union firm. Several workers have been crossing the picket line in recent weeks, Hopson added.

"The economic reality is starting to hit home," he said.

Reporter Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669.

INFORMATIONAL GRAPHIC; STAFF MAP BY STEVE DURBIN THAT SHOWS THE LOCATION OF THE OHIO VALLEY ALUMINUM PLANT IN SHELBYVILLE, KY (SEE LIBRARY MICROFILM OR LIBRARY PDF PAGES)