Only five days remain before workers at Quad City Die Casting are
scheduled to lose their jobs, and the battle with creditor Wells Fargo continues to brew. Back in May, the bank opted to cut off
Quad City's line of credit, endangering the jobs of 100 employees who
work at the 60-year-old aluminum manufacturing plant. In the month
since, the bank has refused
to explain its decision to the workers or to grant extra time for the owners and
officials from United Electrical Workers Local 1174 to find
another source of financing.
Now the union alleges that Wells is also withholding vacation pay and health insurance benefits from the workforce. A UE press release explains:
UE Local 1174 filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board today because workers are being denied their benefits. The company informed employees that Wells Fargo would not approve the expenditure of owed vacation pay. In addition, they have refused to comply with a 2% wage increase due the employees under their legally binding collective bargaining agreement, pay a floating holiday, and they have eliminated health insurance coverage.
This situation is developing strong similarities to the Republic Windows dispute last December (also led by UE members). As you may remember, the factory sit-in at the company's Chicago factory came after creditors refused to cover severance and vacation payowed to the works under the WARN Act. After workers occupied that plant for six days, the banks in question agreed to fork over the $2 million in withheld payments. In a recent Huffington Post entry, Mike Elk quoted UE political action director Chris Townsend on the effect of that sit-in:
"One of the most interesting things about the Republic Windows occupation is that the banks wanted to settle in as rapid a fashion as possible. Two giant banks -- in one week -- were forced to pay the workers what they were owed to the tune of almost two million dollars. There are lawsuits and legal actions that have been going on for years against banks for similar things that have never been able to achieve those kind of results. These banks don't want to be in the spotlight, they want to hide at all costs. They wanted to settle as quickly in order to stop the movement of this type of direct action from spreading because they know such a movement could crush them."
The Quad City dispute is now in the hands of the NLRB, which will hopefully investigate the allegation promptly. In the meantime, workers will continue pressuring Wells to help save the factory, pointing out that Moline's local economy will take a significant hit if it closes next week.
Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user ueunion.
