Bob, who didn't want to give his last name, waves at a passing car that honked support for the employees of Goodman Manufacturing Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012, in Fayetteville, Tenn. A strike by the 1,000 unionized workers at the plant where 1,100 people work have been on strike since Saturday, Dec. 8, 2013. A new contract from the company, which is owned by Daikin Industries, is expected to be approved tonight. Other line-walkers did not want to be in the photo. (Kay Campbell / kcampbell@al.com)
Update at 8:13 p.m.: In meeting tonight: workers accept company's revised contract offer, 584-198.
FAYETTEVILLE, Tennessee - It may be the friendliest strike line in the country.
Bob, who didn't want to give his last name, turned around from walking with an "On Strike" sign in front of Goodman Manufacturing Company, L.P. in Fayetteville Thursday afternoon to wave good-bye to a woman leaving the plant where heating and air conditioning units are made.
"I've been on both sides of the fence," Bob said, explaining the lack of animosity between him or the other line walkers and the woman from management. "These people are not part of our bargaining unit. They've got a job to go to, and it's not my job to get in their way."
Since Saturday, Dec. 8, 2012, at noon, the plant, which employs more than 1,100 people, has been idled. Union workers, about 1,000 people, voted to strike over the new three-year contract that had been proposed by the managers of the plant.
On Thursday, out at the factory's two entrances off the Wilson Parkway, which is on the U.S. 64 bypass, there are steel barrels to contain campfires for the line walkers to stay warm by through the cold nights. Someone had pitched a tent by the western entrance.
"We've been out here round the clock, rain, shine, dark or cold," Bob said, adding that workers volunteered for the four-hour shifts on the line.
Workers from the Stone Bridge Lodge 2385, AFL-CIO vote tonight, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012, at 6 p.m., whether to accept a new offer from the company. The new offer from the company is widely expected to be accepted. The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the Ninth Grade Academy on South Main Street.
"They have made improvements in several areas," said Jerry Benson, the business representative for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and Affiliates District Lodge 711.
Benson, who now works for the union representing nine factories, worked at Goodman, formerly Amana, for 30 years. He said that, despite the strike, that the channels of communication between workers and management has been open.
"Since we were still talking, the company has left the health insurance in place," Benson said. "When they voted to strike, the company reached out immediately and tried to work on it."
Taking the drastic measure of striking when the company presented its "last, best and final" offer on Saturday was a mark of how serious the workers are about protecting some of the conditions of their work, he said. The workers have lost their pay for this week; no help comes from the union on strike pay unless the strike extends another two weeks.
"There is no good time to strike -- but especially at Christmastime when all these young kids are running around and waiting for Santa," Benson said. "They laid it all on the line."
Established in the late '60s, the plant experienced one other strike, one that stretched for more than five months in 1978. The Texas-based Goodman company was acquired by the Japan-based Daikin Industries Ltd. in October. But management of the company still rests with Goodman, Benson said, saying the new ownership hasn't affected negotiations as far as he knows.
Differences between the workers' proposal and management's proposals involve wages, employer contributions on medical coverage and terms of the two-tier wage structure the union workers agreed on about 10 years ago.