Walking the picket line

STRATFORD — Paul Olexovitch, 48, walked the picket line Monday despite two knees bearing surgical scars, while another 25-year Sikorsky Aircraft veteran, 48-year-old Charlie Suller, was recovering from shoulder surgery when he turned out to walk the line Monday, the first day of the Teamsters Local 1150 strike.

Quotable

"We've worked a lifetime to earn health care." — Harvey Jackson, Local 1150 president

After giving almost their entire working lives to Sikorsky, Olexovitch and Suller said their bodies are starting to show signs of wear, like those of many line workers. And that's one reason they said the 3,500-member Teamsters Local 1150 rejected a contract that would force them to pay more for medical coverage.

Sunday, the local's members voted 2,145-1,052 to reject Sikorsky's contract offer and go on strike at the helicopter maker's plants in Stratford, Bridgeport, Shelton, West Haven and West Palm Beach, Fla. The company and union could not say Monday when negotiations would resume.

This marks the first strike by Local 1150 Teamsters at Sikorsky's Connecticut

plant since 1963, but other unions have held strikes at Sikorsky within the last two decades. Local 1150 Teamsters struck at Sikorsky's Alabama plant in 2002.

Stephen Finger, Sikorsky president, has experience running a factory during a strike. He was head of Pratt & Whitney's military division in 2001 when machinists walked off the job for 12 days.

At Sikorsky, the union has said it wants medical benefits to remain as they are.

Sikorsky offered annual raises of 3.5 percent over the three-year life of the contract, but also wanted to increase employees' medical co-pays and contributions. The Teamsters said the average weekly employee health-care contribution is $25, but the company wanted to increase that to $52 in 2007 and $72 in 2008.

Quotable

"Every company in the country is struggling with health care." — Ed Steadham, Sikorsky spokesman

The average Sikorsky union worker's salary ranges from $18.59 to $32.50 per hour.

Sikorsky officials said other workers are filling the Teamster's jobs and that the company is open for business. As to the health-care issue, Sikorsky said it's a national problem.

"Every company in the country is struggling with health care," said Ed Steadham, a Sikorsky spokesman. The contract the company offered, he added, was "the same plan that 6,000 salaried workers have."

But Olexovitch and Suller said their jobs are physically demanding and the company wants to foist rising costs on workers, with a large portion of Sikorsky's wage workers approaching the age at which health problems start to appear more frequently.

The average age of Sikorsky workers is 48, according to Harvey Jackson, Local 1150 president.

Jackson said the union told negotiators to scrap the $2,000-per-member bonus it was offering and reduce the pay raise to 3 percent per year in order to keep medical coverage the same, but the company wouldn't go for it.

"We've worked a lifetime to earn health care," he said. Sikorsky managers "need to be reminded they operate in America, not China."

Peter Ronai, a clinical exercise physiologist and manager of community health for Ahlbin Rehabilitation Centers of Bridgeport Hospital, said physically demanding work takes a toll on the human body. He would not discuss Sikorsky in particular, but said the center has treated some of its workers.

Some factory workers, nurses, auto mechanics and carpenters can experience problems with joints, Ronai said, because constant motion and rubbing inside joints wears them out.

But it's not just people who have physically demanding jobs who face joint problems, Ronai said. Engineers and others who spend a lot of time in front of computers can experience neck, shoulder and back problems.

Ronai said many injuries and problems can be avoided, but over a long period some people will experience problems.

Bonnie Stewart, vice president of government affairs for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, said controlling health-care costs is the No. 1 concern of its 10,000 members.

Like Ronai, Stewart would not discuss Sikorsky's issues, but said rising costs are hurting businesses and workers.

Stewart said many of the problems Sikorsky workers reported fall under worker's compensation, not their regular health insurance plans.

But the real issue remains health-care costs. She said CBIA would like to see the state Legislature and Congress find ways to reduce costs by adopting electronic record-keeping and other efficiencies.

In the meantime, workers gathered Monday morning at all three of the Stratford plant's Main Street gates, where they yelled at salaried workers entering the plant. Many motorists speeding by the Main Street pickets honked their support for the workers.

There are other issues confronting the company and strikers beyond health care. The nation is at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and workers said they have heard charges the strike might delay some vital parts needed for military orders.

But striking Sikorsky worker Martin Kaufman, 48, of East Haven, said anyone who calls the strikers unpatriotic should take a closer look at who is walking the picket line.

"I was in the military. I served in the first Desert Storm," Kaufman said. "Most people out there are from the military."

Kaufman and others said they are willing to stay out "indefinitely," until the company offers the union a contract it can live with.

Rob Varnon, who covers business, can be reached at 330-6216.

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