Coordinated bargaining, international pressure help lodge prevail

Boilermakers, Steelworkers lead group; network will coordinate bargaining strategies

FIVE UNIONS THAT represent workers in the North American cement/building materials industry have created a network to coordinate collective bargaining strategies and other activities. The Boilermakers and the Steelworkers will co-coordinate the group. Other participants include the Mine Workers, the Laborers, and the Teamsters.

Program held in five cities in United States and Canada

2008 WAS AN election year — not only for the governments of Canada and the United States, but also for Boilermaker local lodges in both countries. While U.S. lodges must hold elections every three years, Canadian lodges do so every five years. Occasionally, the Boilermaker local lodge election cycles coincide, as they did in 2008.

Local struggles to preserve retiree health care benefits

THE STRUGGLE OF Local D27 members (Independence, Mo.) to keep French-owned Lafarge from cutting retiree health care benefits during collective bargaining reached an international forum in Paris Oct. 3 and 4. Lafarge employs 55 Local D27 members at its Sugar Creek, Mo., cement plant.