Striking workers at Mott's returned to work this week after a 16-week strike brought on by Mott's insistence that employees accept wage and benefit cuts even though the company was not facing any financial difficulties. Instead, the company took the position that the workers simply made too much compared to other workers in the area.
While the Retail Workers Union is portraying the strike as a victory, and it is in certain ways, the settlement shows just how courageous employees are who do strike. Workers were out on the picket line for 16 weeks. And at the end of it, what did they get? They didn't get raises. They didn't get pension increases. They didn't get better health care. Instead, the barely managed to preserve what they had before their contract expired. Prior to the settlement Mott's was insisting on a pension freeze for employees, a $1.50 per hour pay cuts, increased health care contributions, and a smaller match for employees' 401(k) plans.
After 16 weeks workers did manage to stave off cuts. They returned to work for a wage freeze for three years, elimination of the pension for new workers, a smaller contribution to employees' 401(k) plans, and increased copays for medical insurance. In other words, employees had to strike to barely preserve what they had and take smaller benefit cuts than the company's original proposals.
The disturbing thing about the Mott's strike is that the company insisted on keeping workers' wages and benefits down for no other reason than they thought they could. The company's justification for its draconian proposals was not that it needed concessions to stay competitive, or because it was losing money -- it couldn't really, since its corporate parent made $555 million last year. No, Motts' justification was that it thought its workers made too much money relative to the labor market in the Rochester area.
Driving benefits and wages downward hurts America and hurts our economy. No wonder we're in a recession. (Despite the economists proclamations to the contrary, it still feels like a recession regardless of whether GMP is up.) Without disposable income or easy sources of credit, people can't buy goods and products that keep the economy buzzing along. We've seen stagnant wages for working people for close to thirty years, and the trend does not look promising.
We should salute the workers at Mott's for their stand against concessions and for striking for what's right. Let's be honest about the victory though -- at the end of the day the winner here is probably Mott's, which managed to impose wage freezes and benefit cuts on its employees.
