1,400 Pennsylvania Locomotive Manufacturing Workers Are on the Verge of a Strike
Workers at the Erie, Pennsylvania, train manufacturing complex Wabtec are poised to walk off the job should they decide the company’s contract offer is insufficient. One of their main priorities is a rarity for US unions: the right to strike over grievances.
Picket signs stacked in the UE Local 506 union hall outside Wabtec in Erie, Pennsylvania. (Alex N. Press)
ERIE, PA — “What do you think of the company’s contract proposals?” asked a man at the head of a contingent of workers marching down the avenue that cuts through the mile-long, mile-wide Wabtec locomotive manufacturing complex.
“Fuck you!” responded members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), their voices echoing off the walls of the buildings around them.
A few blocks down Main Street inside Irish Cousins, the bar across from the union hall of Local 506, which represents the plant’s workers — save for the handful of clerical employees, members of Local 618 whose jobs have not been eliminated through automation — one patron’s “How are you doing?” was answered by another customer with “Waiting on the word.”
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