DuPont workers getting $3 million back pay
Settlement stems from outsourcing in 2001
Eighty-four workers at DuPont’s Town of Tonawanda plant will receive a total of $3 million in back pay stemming from DuPont’s decision to outsource some work in 2001.
Union and management leaders say they are hopeful the settlement, which was worked out with the National Labor Relations Board, will help the two sides move past a difficult period in their relationship.
“It’s a big settlement for us,” said Dan Austin, president of Steelworkers Local 6992, which represents about 400 of the 668 employees at the River Road plant.
Ron Lee, the plant manager, said in a statement: “We felt that the settlement was a fair one and are pleased to have brought closure to this issue.”
The dispute began with a charge filed in 2001 with the NLRB by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers union. The union later merged with the Steelworkers.
The union had objected to Du- Pont’s decision to outsource to contractors finishing tasks for Corian countertop material that were performed at the plant. Fifty-three DuPont employees were laid off after the work was transferred.
The union argued DuPont had prematurely declared an impasse in bargaining over the outsourcing, while the company contended it had acted properly. The ensuing legal battle would last for years.
In 2004, an administrative law judge with the NLRB ruled in favor of the union’s position. DuPont appealed unsuccessfully on that issue to the full National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia upheld the NLRB’s decision.
The $3 million in back pay from DuPont will be given to the workers who were laid off, as well as others who were reassigned to lower-paying jobs at the DuPont plant following the outsourcing, said Kathy Creighton, an attorney who represented the Steelworkers in the case. The money must be distributed by the end of January 2009. The amounts range from as much as $210,000 to as little as a few hundred dollars.
Ten of the 53 laid-off DuPont employees have been placed on a “preferential recall list.” They will be recalled, in order of seniority, to the first available jobs. Once recalled, the employees’ service credits will be restored from their 2001 layoff through the end of 2006, and their seniority date will become their original date of hire.
Most of the 53 workers laid off in 2001 have already been recalled, Creighton said. About five of the laid-off workers said they were not interested in returning to DuPont.
Austin said he was hopeful the resolution of the outsourcing issue, as well as a new labor contract approved earlier this year, could help the plant make a stronger case to expand its production of Tedlar, an industrial coating.
“It puts to rest 15 years of uneasy feelings between labor and management,” the union leader said.
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