More than 240 IAM Local 330 members voted overwhelmingly to strike the Cheektowaga, NY Ingersoll Rand manufacturing plant after the company demanded mandatory overtime and significantly higher out-of-pocket health insurance costs.
The workers, who make air and gas compressors for industrial plants, voted down the company’s “last, best and final” offer on Sunday, August 9, triggering a nearly unanimous vote to strike.
For Ingersoll Rand workers, it’s about keeping their middle-class way of life.
“Our members are strong in their resolve to fight back a sub-standard healthcare plan, a two-tier wage and benefit proposal, mandatory overtime and a lump sum wage increase,” said IAM District 65 Business Representative Pete Cooney.
New workers under the company’s offer would be making four dollars an hour less than current workers. Mandatory overtime could essentially wipe out dependable family time on the weekends for plant employees.
“We’re going to stick together as a union body fighting for what we believe are fair wages, benefits and a future,” IAM Local 330 member Chuck Sprigg told WKBW-TV in Buffalo.
