Adell Plastics workers accept contract
Workers at Adell Plastics in North Linthicum averted an expected strike Friday by ratifying a contract negotiated last week by the president of the workers’ union local and the company president.
Manufacturing workers voted by a 2-1 margin to accept a contract in which the company agreed to nearly all of the terms employees had sought for more than a year, said John Clemens, president of Local 557 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
He said 67 of the company’s 85 employees voted.
The three-year contract includes joint employee-company committees to work on health and welfare issues and to act as a grievance panel. It also allows for a closed union shop, which requires employees to join the union, and revises a management rights article that the union felt gave management free rein over hiring and firing, work schedules and other areas.
Mr. Clemens described those issues as most important to employees.
The company refused requests for hourly wage increases of more than 25 cents each year. The union had sought hourly increases of 50 cents each year for the next three years, then asked for 40 cents the first year, 35 cents the second and 20 cents the third.
