Allentown Local and Former
Unionists Revive Organizing
April 28, 2008
Deindustrialization and the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico and Asia have always been blamed for the difficulty in maintaining union density in the United States. But there’s another side to that story. Across the nation, displaced industrial workers are carrying trade union values to their new jobs and standing up for workplace justice. Allentown, Pa., Local 375 has joined some of these stalwart unionists to win organizing campaigns and show that trade unionism is alive in the rust belt.
Bert Serfass (left) and Matt Slifer, members of now-defunct Local 1522, lost their jobs when Agere Inc. shut down two Pennsylvania microelectronics plants. They went on to new jobs working for Upper Macungie Township where they organized a bargaining unit represented by Allentown Local 375.
Many years after Billy Joel sang, “We’re living here in Allentown and they’re closing all the factories down,” the song hit home for former IBEW manufacturing members Burt Serfass and Matt Slifer when Agere, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of microelectronics, shut down its plants in Allentown and Breinigsville, Pa.. and moved operations to China. Serfass, Slifer and almost 4,000 members of now-defunct Local 1522 began collecting their pensions, severance packages or went looking for new work.
Slifer, 46, went to work in the sewer public works department of Upper Macungie Township, operating heavy equipment and performing township maintenance. He was hired at one-half of his former salary as a 23-year Agere maintenance mechanic. Serfass was hired later after his plant shut down. Soon both men realized that their pay was lower than similar workers in neighboring communities. They talked to their new co-workers in the township, a suburb of Allentown in the state’s Lehigh Valley, and took the issue to management.
“The township tossed us a $1.25 per-hour raise to keep us quiet,” says Slifer. But it wasn’t enough. Managers in the Republican-led municipality kept telling them they were “at will” employees who could be sacked or denied merit pay increases without any recourse. So they searched for a union to represent them. In April 2007, on the advice of their former local’s vice president, Ed Hearns, they contacted Allentown Local 375 to organize the full-time and regular part-time blue-collar, non-professional workers in Upper Macungie Township. In July 2007, the workers voted 10 to 6 for IBEW representation.
“We’re a progressive local,” says Local 375 Organizer Dave Reichard, who faced a crash course understanding the differences between public sector and private sector representation elections. The local, which represents construction electricians, motor repairmen, teledata technicians and cable TV technicians, was determined not to let down the municipal workers. “Once you lose an election, you never want to lose again,” says Reichard.
The township is taking a tough stance in first contract negotiations. “It’s an uphill battle, but we’ll breathe easier when we win and they won’t just be able to get rid of us anytime they want to,” says Slifer.
Upper Macungie Township shares some heavy equipment with neighboring North Whitehall Township. When North Whitehall’s blue-collar workers heard about IBEW’s campaign at Macungie, they wanted to get on board. The workers, also concerned about job security, as well as lagging pay rates and favoritism, had contacted another union, but hadn’t heard back.
In November 2007, North Whitehall’s work force voted 8 to 2 to be represented by Local 375.
To mirror the local’s success in the public sector, Local 375 launched an organizing campaign in the private utility sector. Once again, a former industrial unionist was behind the activity at Pepco Holdings Inc. which operates and maintains the Conectiv Energy plant in Bethlehem, Pa., a fuel oil and gas generation plant.
Ray Lutz was a member of the United Steelworkers at Dana Corporation’s 2,000-worker metal stamping plant in Reading, Pa. After the plant shut down in 2003, Lutz, who had helped organize his local, went to work at Conectiv as a maintenance operator. Built in 2000, the Bethlehem plant was Conectiv’s sole nonunion facility.
“A bunch of us in the plant were between 30 and 40 years old with a lot of world experience,” says Lutz. While wage rates were competitive with many surrounding companies, PHI offered them no retirement benefits. And, like the township workers, they were concerned about “at will” employment. Their fears were driven home when PHI fired a co-worker who was suffering from multiple sclerosis.
“When we started organizing,” says Lutz,” they fought us tooth and nail.” But on the same day as North Whitehall’s election, PHI’s work force, consisting of operations, maintenance, electronics and instrumentation workers, voted 16 to 8 for IBEW representation in an NLRB election.
PHI filed objections to the election with the NLRB. In February, a hearing officer overruled the company’s arguments.
“The guys in Local 375 were awesome and they went the extra mile for us,” says Lutz.
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