Fayette
County Pastors Help Medegen Workers Fend Off Unfair Cuts
Workers
at the Medgen medical parts manufacturing plant in Gallaway, TN are
celebrating
a new union contract reached in February 2007. The victory
comes after a hard fought battle
by workers and SEIU Local 205 to win a
new contract. A group of workers, including some
who had worked for the company for over 15 years,
walked off the job in
March of last year in a one day protest against Medegen’s proposed
contract. In negotiations, the company had demanded exhausting 12
hour shifts for almost
all workers; the elimination of overtime
prote
ctions for the few workers who would remain
on 8 hour shifts;
and major cuts in vacation time for new workers.
Workers who participated in the job
action were immediately replaced with workers
from a temporary service.
Many went for months without health insurance for their families,
with
only unemployment benefits to survive on. As worker Debra Winston, who
has worked
for the company for 17 years stated, “We put the company
first, before our own families
and everything else, and then they didn’t
care about us.”
In July of 2006, local and national
participants in the Word and World Faith and Labor School
held a prayer
vigil with Medegen workers across the street from the plant. The vigil
was an
emotional one, with many workers worried about what they would do
if their unemployment
ran out before the company offered them their jobs
back. In September workers were
allowed to come back to work, though
many were placed on the night shift, disrupting their families’ lives.
During the summer and fall of 2006,
Workers Interfaith Network seminary intern James
Luvene worked with Fayette County clergy including Rev. Wallace Montague of the Fayette
County Interdenominational Ministers’ Alliance, Rev. Rob Martin of Faith
United Methodist
Church, and Rev. George Coleman of Cleaves’ Memorial
C.M.E. Church. The ministers
met with plant manager Jim Jenkins in
December, urging the company to resume negotiations
promptly and to
bargain fairly with workers, especially since employees had been
working
without the protection of a contract for almost nine months.
“These ministers lived out the truth
stated in the book of James that
our faith is alive only when it can be seen through our works,” Luvene
said.
Workers are proud of their new
contract, which rejected all the numerous cuts that the company
originally demanded. Workers also won a modest wage increase and
improvements to their
health insurance plan. All workers who were
replaced by temporary workers are now back
on the job, and all but three
of these workers are back to their original shifts. “Thanks to the
ministers and their efforts, we got a good contract,” said shop steward
Lonnie Winston.
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