I love to work metal - blacksmithing and want to set up a small foundry - so I scan the news for anything metal related.
Saw this item in the Chehalis, WA Chronicle:
Bradken Foundry in Chehalis Will Close; 91 Employees Affected
Bradken, a company that specializes in steel castings and similar products, announced Wednesday it plans to shut down its operations in Chehalis.
According to a news release from the company, Bradken notified employees at the foundry on Sears Road of its impending closure. Ninety-one employees will be impacted, although the release doesn’t necessarily say they will be laid off; a great deal of the work will shift northward.
“The closure will be staggered in departments to service the needs of customers as we work to complete orders at that facility as well as distribute ongoing customer orders to other facilities with much of the work transferred to Bradken’s Tacoma foundry,” the release stated.
The company is global and based in Australia:
Buried in the story is this little item:
Locally, workers at the Chehalis foundry moved to unionize in 2012 in what local labor leaders called the largest labor unionization in Lewis County in three decades. The workers joined the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, and in 2013 filed a complaint against Bradken with the National Labor Relations Board for regressive and surface bargaining — essentially a charge that the company was stalling wage negotiations.
The union stated in a September 2013 Chronicle article that Chehalis employees had been earning at least $4 per hour less than what people doing the same jobs at Tacoma’s foundry were making. In June 2014, the union and Bradken reached a tentative agreement.
Yup. They got more money from the company and the company closed down the plant. Chehalis is a rural community and the cost of living is a lot cheaper than in Tacoma. (Chehalis - Tacoma) I would bet that the $4/hour reflects this difference.
Smart move and great long-range planning...