RACINE, WI – Talks between United Auto Workers and Case New Holland Industrial were halted after a proposal from the company that included increased wages that would be largely offset by more costly health insurance.
“Neither side’s talking,” Nick Guernsey, president of UAW Local 807, told The Hawk Eye newspaper on Monday as the strike by about 430 unionized employees at CNHi’s Burlington plant entered its fifth week. “The end of last week, we weren’t gaining any traction and it just kind of got to a point where there’s no sense of wasting anyone’s time.”
Guernsey and a Local 807 committee chairman traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to meet with representatives of UAW International; UAW Local 180, which represents about 600 employees of CNHi’s Racine, Wisconsin, plant; and Case as the parties resumed talks for the first time since the strike began at noon May 2.
Rebecca Fabian, a spokesperson for CNHi, said she could not comment about the negotiations and instead presented the company’s official statement, which criticized the UAW for walking away from the bargaining table, as well as for not putting the proposal to a vote by its members.
