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All-Clad workers walk out
BY MICHAEL BRADWELL, Staff writer
MEADOW LANDS - Hourly workers at All-Clad Metal Crafters walked off
their jobs Thursday night after rejecting the company's latest contract
offer earlier in the day.
The workers, who are members of United Steelworkers of America Local
3403, voted at 3 p.m. at Holiday Inn, Meadow Lands.
Jack Coates, assistant director of USWA District 10, who administered
the vote, declined to give a tally but said workers rejected the company's
four-year offer, the second one it had made within the past two weeks.
"The members felt it was insufficient," Coates said Thursday.
"We're prepared for a strike," he said.
Workers were picketing outside the plant Thursday night.
All-Clad makes high-end cookware used by professional chefs and also
sells the pots and pans in upscale department stores across the country.
The company employs about 300 people who work in three shifts at its
Morganza Road factory in Cecil Township.
According to a summary of contract changes obtained by the Observer-Reporter,
the company's latest offer included minimum hourly wage increases
of 25 cents on March 1 of each year from 2004 through 2007, as well
as an additional 35-cent-per-hour increase on Sept. 1, 2007. Employees
also were offered a lump-sum $595 ratification bonus.
Workers rejected the company's first offer in a vote on March 16 and
had been working without a contract since then.
The company did not return a call seeking a response to Thursday's
vote and subsequent walkout.
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