Caterpillar Strike Leaves Legacy Of Anger
After 17 months on strike against Caterpillar Inc., Mike Stever almost dreads returning to work.
The assembly line worker and his colleagues have gained nothing. They will go back to their jobs over the next few weeks seething with anger - and with some uncertainty about their new roles.
“It’s going to be like going into work for the very first time, even though I’ve got 23 years at Cat,” Stever said Wednesday. “I’m a little nervous.”
The 8,700 striking members of the United Auto Workers will work with union members who abandoned the strike and crossed the picket lines as well as with new employees.
The strikers had hoped to maintain overtime pay, job security and the power to protest and organize on company grounds. Instead, they each lost roughly $37,000 in wages before the strike was crushed.
And most believe that the smoldering friction between the union and the nation’s largest maker of heavy and earth-moving equipment could flare up again at any time.
Peoria has endured four major strikes against Caterpillar in 13 years. The first two ripped apart the local economy. The area has grown less dependent on Caterpillar since then, but strikes still mean trouble for local business.
They also mean trouble for friendships. In the past, it went without saying that union members walked out unanimously when a strike was called. In the last two strikes, though, thousands of UAW members have defied the union and gone back to work. The company also has hired replacement workers.
That has produced hostility, even some vandalism, between strikers and those who crossed the picket lines.
Stever posted a sign in his yard with the word “scab” an arrow pointing to a neighbor’s home.
The Rev. L.L. Mullinax, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Creve Coeur, knows of two brothers-in-law who refused to see each other last Christmas because of the strike.
That anger will be slow to fade until labor problems at Caterpillar are resolved, he said.
“There is quite a feeling of uncertainty,” said Mullinax, who tries to remain neutral. “It’s just a bad situation, and it doesn’t seem to be resolved in any shape, form or fashion.”
It started in November 1991 over a contract disagreement. The union went on strike more than five months, but returned when Caterpillar threatened to permanently replace the strikers.
The union then started a campaign of following work rules to the letter and launching brief strikes. Caterpillar fired dozens of union activists, and the union filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
Finally, the union walked out again, this time protesting unfair labor practices. That meant strikers could not be replaced.
But Caterpillar could hire new workers, find lots of temporaries and lure back about 4,100 union members. It continued operating and making record-high profits until the UAW folded.