As they started their third week on strike Monday, February 17, workers at Union Industries Inc. in Providence focused their ire on company president Harley Frank.

Standing around a makeshift shed covered with blue plastic tarps, the workers long for Frank's father, Buddy, to reassume control of the brick mill on Admiral Street, a block from the Chad Brown housing project. "He was a good man," says second shift steward Junior Soares. "He treated us very well."

Demands for concessions by Harley Frank led to the strike, say Soares and his fellow picketers. "As soon as the son took over," agrees United Steelworkers of America union representative Russell Roy, "every thing changed."

Frank, however, says that union claims of wonderful relations with his father are not accurate, citing a bitter and violent 1979 strike. Concessions are necessary, he adds, for the company to compete with larger rivals, some of whom have increased access to the US market due to the North American Free Trade Agreement. "The goal here is to bring things [labor costs] back in line . . . or we're going to continue on the downward spiral we've been on for the last seven years," says Frank, 39. "I'm fighting for their jobs and they don't realize it."

Union Industries, also known as Union Paper, makes plastic packaging for Bic pens, Lincoln coffee syrup maker Autocrat Inc, and other food, industrial, and consumer product companies, according to the union.

According to Roy, Frank came to the bargaining table in October with 47 proposals, enough to rewrite the entire contract. Union members say the company wants employees to pay about 25 percent of the cost their health insurance, proposes a two-tier wage system that would pay new employees $2 a hour less than current employees, and seeks to gut seniority, reduce shift differentials by more than half, and impose mandatory overtime while eliminating overtime pay after eight hours. Another company proposal, according to the union, would allow the company to fire seriously ill or injured employees who are unable to return to work after three months.

"They want to rewrite the entire contract for their benefit," says Soares. Adds Roy, "They did not sit down to negotiate a reasonable contract. Their intention was to force us out [on strike]."

Frank counters, "The union refused to negotiate at all." The company must deliver packaging on time or lose customers, he explains, but it consistently has difficulty getting union members to work overtime. He denies trying to break the union.

The contract expired in November, but negotiations continued until the company presented its final contract offer in late January, which was rejected by workers, and they voted to strike, starting February 3.

Currently 47 of the plant's 63 workers are on strike, says Soares. The rest are crossing the picket line. Union members have distributed a flyer headlined, "Do you know our boss Harley Frank?" in the neighborhoods around the factory and Frank's East Side home. More leafleting is planned with help from Jobs With Justice and the Brown University Student Labor Alliance. The union also plans to ask the company's customers for support.

A negotiating session planned for February 19 was postponed due to the snowstorm and has not yet been rescheduled, says Frank. Meanwhile, the company is advertising for replacement workers.

Issue Date: February 21 - 27, 2003