A union takes a beating at Vought Aircraft
by Brantley Hargrove
"There's a scab," sneers Darrell Davis, his mouth forming the four-letter word with the same distaste he might display pronouncing "liberal."
A long horn has just sounded within the Vought Aircraft factory. Shift change. A line of cars with out-of-state plates—Texas, California, Florida, all strikebreakers—disperses from a patch of asphalt ignominiously designated by a sign that reads "SCAB parking lot," placed by striking members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 735.
Davis, a tower of a man with a boyish, whiskery face, keeps warm near a 50-gallon barrel filled with flaming chunks of hardwood. This is month four of a strike that began in September, when these workers who build the tail sections for Gulfstream jets and military transport planes were supposed to reach a new contract.
But Vought—owned by the Carlyle Group, an $8 billion private equity investment firm with tentacles in telecommunications, defense and aerospace—wasn't in a giving mood. It wanted a contract filled with far more takes than gives.
At that time, the unsympathetic face of economic collapse had yet to show itself in Tennessee. At least not fully. Vought managers allegedly pleaded with workers to sign the contract, apparently realizing Carlyle wouldn't budge. The union instead voted to strike.
They traded paychecks that averaged $700 to $800 a week for a meager $150 a week in strike pay, fearing they would lose much more if they agreed to Vought's demands. The company wanted to switch anyone with less than 16 years from a pension to a 401(k). It also wanted to buy out workers eligible for retirement—$20,000 if they retired but returned to work, and $25,000 if they just went away.
It was a classic divide-and-conquer strategy, designed to sweeten the pot for older employees at the expense of the new. So the union began manning night and day pickets at the plant near the airport. Newly hired guards in spit-shined boots watched their every move.
As the strike progressed, Vought amped up the pressure. Employees were brought in from other plants. Earlier this month it threatened to permanently replace the strikers if a contract wasn't ratified.
The picket line stress was palpable.
"I am the sole provider," said Jennifer Aldridge, a mother of two. "My husband's on disability. We're just scraping by. We've just about maxed out every credit card we got."
Others compensated with a self-sufficiency rarely found in the city. "Luckily, I was sorta prepared for this," said one man who wouldn't provide his name, fearing reprisals once the strike ended. "I had a 900-pound steer in the freezer a month before we went out. You go back to the way most of us was raised. We're not out here because we like this. It comes to a point where you hand over everything you got or you fight for it."
Davis, a Vietnam infantryman and Eagleville farmer, sells hay and a cow now and then to supplement his income. While he's hurting just as much as the next guy, he maintained unequivocal support for his union. "I ain't votin' for it. Bad as I need to go to work, I can't vote for it."
Rivet machine operator David Eldridge took a more resigned approach. He's been here long enough to remember the strike in the late '80s, long enough to know he's but a cog in the manufacturing machine. He summed up Vought-employee relationships this way: "One of my co-workers had a heart attack on the line. The second they called 911 they clocked him out. They did CPR on him. Never could bring him back, though."
As news story after news story heralded the collapse of banks, the buckling of the automotive industry and lengthening lines at unemployment offices, Local 735 was forced to vote on a contract that hadn't become any more attractive since negotiations began.
In the bleary, fluorescent halls of McGavock High, clutches of men in steel-toes and Carhartt coats waited for the votes to be tallied.
They were voting on a contract that entailed drastic cuts to pensions, mandatory overtime and a stripping of seniority rules. Under the proposal, Vought would be able to transfer them without regard for years of service. Their insurance policy would also deny coverage to spouses who are at least 50 percent covered by their own workplace.
Betty Brown, a 30-year employee in the bonding and plastics department, voted to approve all of this. After four months she'd had enough. "I keep up with the economy in U.S. News and World Report, and to me, personally, I thought (the strike) was ill-conceived, wasn't thought out. We jumped off the cliff and they asked us not to."
Among the many groupings of men, some pontificated about the union's fate. "If it doesn't pass, the union is broken," said one. The money reserved for strike pay can only last so long.
A woman emerged from the gym, where the votes were being counted.
"It passed," she cried. The margin was roughly 4 to 1, but it could hardly be construed as a victory.
"We got sold out," said Davis. "This contract...all you got going back in now is a union and union dues. You ain't got nothin'. They beat us. The people here are scared."
He shrugged as he walked down the hall, wearing a fedora the hue of the rusted barrel strikers used to keep warm over the past four months, looking a bit like an anachronism in a new day when the sway of organized labor has surely weakened.
Email bhargrove@nashvillescene.com, or call 615-844-9403.
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