Manufacturer faces labor tiff, pending sale: Lincoln Foodservice Products

[Earth Bound Misfit]

By Doug LeDuc

A new president at Fort Wayne-based Lincoln Foodservice Products inherited a complaint before the National Labor Relations Board as well as an opportunity to win new customers and keep old ones with an important upgrade on one of the manufacturer’s ovens.

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Lincoln employs about 250 at its North Hadley Road manufacturing facility, where it makes cookware and ovens for the food-services industry. Maintenance and production employees at the plant are represented by Sheet Metal Workers International Association Local 237.

Manitowoc Co., a conglomerate based in Manitowoc, Wis., won a bidding war for Enodis, besting Illinois Tool Works with an offer of $2.1 billion, plus a termination fee of $50 million

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Lincoln is seeking to outsource some of its Fort Wayne production to China over the objection of the union, which has said its labor contract was violated in March when the company began outsourcing some two-bulb food-warmer production to China without the union’s consent.

Language in the contract says the local’s shop committee won’t unreasonably withhold consent, but it must be obtained before the company outsources work ordinarily done by union members.

An arbitration hearing on the matter took place on July 28 and the case is now in “post-arbitration proceedings, where we file briefs, written documents, highlighting the evidence,” said Pat Proctor, an attorney with Eilbacher-Fletcher who represents the local.

“There are numerous grievances, and we have a couple more scheduled for arbitration,” he said. “If the union wins this, it will make it a lot easier to win the others. Often it comes down to the same issue as to whether the union was reasonable in withholding its approval.”

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The sale of Enodis won’t affect the NLRB case, said Proctor, because the labor contract will remain in force regardless of any changes in the ownership of Lincoln.

“We hope that the new owners will have a better attitude toward the union and the contract than the old owners did,” he said. “The union, I believe, is very happy with the tone set by the (new Lincoln) president.”

Read More: http://www.fwdailynews.com/articles/2008/08/15/greater_fort_wayne/news/hid14871sect_c300fc527d1cf561a36.txt