As labor negotiations loom for workers at the South Milwaukee Caterpillar plant, a local union is asking Milwaukee Area Technical College to stop training potential strike replacement workers.
That’s according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. From it:
United Steelworkers Local 1343 says Caterpillar has placed about 25 nonunion employees in the college’s welder training program before contract negotiations with the union, which are set to begin in April.
Should the talks break down, those employees could step in and replace striking workers.
“Please don’t allow MATC to be used as a pawn in Caterpillar’s union-busting games,” the Steelworkers said Wednesday in a letter to the college’s board of directors and President Michael Burke.
The union has asked the college to immediately stop the training and to return any training materials to Caterpillar.
“Judging from its training of these potential replacement workers, and the company’s long history of confronting unions, we already know that these negotiations will be tough,” Local 1343 said in a note to its membership.
The union has represented workers at the mining equipment factory for more than 70 years, but this will be the first contract negotiations since Caterpillar acquired the plant as part of its $7.6 billion purchase of the former Bucyrus International in 2010.
Caterpillar acknowledges putting nonunion employees into the welder training program, and it says that’s standard practice when preparing for contract talks that could break down and result in a work stoppage.
“We do this well in advance of a contract expiring. We train our own employees to do specific jobs so that we don’t have a slowdown in production,” said company spokesman Jim Baumgartner.
“This is a normal precautionary plan that we go through in any union labor situation,” he said.
Here is a previous post on fears of a Cat strike.
I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear about the labor talks that have yet to begin. I’ll keep you posted.
South Milwaukee Blog 
What does it matter if MATC trainees temporarily take their place during the strike? Because once it’s settled, the “Last Hired, First Fired” Union rules go into place. They will be gone. However, they’ll have the skills to go to Joy Global, and any other large weld shop in our region.
I strongly feel the Unions are fueling their own demise as well as the skilled trade worker shortage by not welcoming training, mentoring in young people (like in early High school) to promote their trade.
Going on strike is not helping their profession to stay in this country.
How about I write a letter as a taxpayer that is forced to support MATC that they not knuckle under to the thug, threat tactics of the unions? How many times have we seen this kind of behavior in the past from the unions? Are they that much different from the organized crime bosses in the ’30s with this intimidation?
A labor union that requests to control the curriculum at a publicly funded educational institution is a labor union that doesn’t respect the public.
While in this case the MATC board has a contractual obligation to continue to educate, it’s sickening that the educators at MATC think that they should abide by the unions curriculum control request.
My big take away: The board doesn’t teach, the teachers do. Are the teachers going to provide the same education value to non-union students as they would for union students? I’d recommend people wanting to pursue a career in the trades to stay as far away from MATC as possible. There are other educational options….
ridiculous
My fear is that “planning ahead” for a strike becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let’s hope that is not the case here.
Erik,
What is that supposed to mean? Do you really think that Cat wants a strike? By planning ahead and being prepared they can lessen the impact of a strike but I don’t think any company looks forward to that kind of disruption to it’s workers’ families, customers and its profitability.
With all do respect Erik I have to side with Randy G. CAT is planning ahead because the union has already indicated they are going to strike.
The three month strike in Peoria yielded nothing for the union and damaged the companies revenue stream. Ask any local manufacturer, like National Standard, if the strike affected them?
This is not game, this is a business that has real competition and must make a profit to succeed.
CAT acquired Electro-motive in London Ontario in 2010. Electro-motive is the second largest train manufacturer in North America. They could not reach an agreement with the union and they shut the operation down and now CAT manufactures trains in Muncie Indiana. Picture that scenario in South Milwaukee.
Bullying a technical college will not help a company be successful, nor will a protracted strike at a company that hasn’t sold a drag line in two years.