FOCUS/midwest

A full version of this article by St. Louis writer C.D. Stelzer appears in the fall edition of FOCUS/midwest, available for free at Issuu (http://bit.ly/9Ig7cX) and Scribd (http://scr.bi/anPe6T).

. . . He says the troubles began when Honeywell International Inc. disbanded his union’s safety committee. In its place, his employer implemented a program named “behavioral safety,” a euphemism for a system that blames individual workers for on-the-job accidents. As a result, plant workers refrained from reporting accidents out of fear that they would lose their jobs. The big man furrows his brow, as he describes how the program essentially helped mask the continuing safety risks inside the plant. Workers’ morale declined and labor disputes inside the plant accelerated.

The big man compares the work he does – uranium processing – to coal mining an occupation with a long history in the Southern Illinois. Both are dirty and fraught with potential safety hazards and chronic health risks. Since coal mining petered out hereabouts, the nuclear energy industry offers the best paying jobs. The Honeywell plant helps supply processed uranium to the gaseous diffusion plant in nearby Paducah, which further refines nuclear fuel. The facilities, which are both radioactively contaminated, are products of the Cold War, built more than 50 years ago as a part of the nuclear arms race against the former Soviet Union. They now help supply enriched uranium to the nuclear power industry.

The labor problems peaked earlier this summer, after contract negotiations between Steelworkers Local 7-669 and Honeywell broke down over the company’s plan to reduce retiree health benefits and cut the pensions of newly hired workers. On June 28, Honeywell locked out its 220 union employees. The company replaced its union workers with non-union employees supplied by Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Shaw, a billion-dollar corporation, holds numerous government contracts with the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.

The lockout has had a ripple effect across the entire nuclear energy industry, causing the price of uranium companies’ stock to skyrocket. Closer to home, the lockout is on the brink of sending the already recession-wracked local economy into a tailspin. With tempers flaring on both sides, a once-cohesive community is on the verge of coming apart at the seams. The lockout has pitted management against labor and neighbor against neighbor. The risks of potential nuclear mishap have raised tensions in the town of 6,500.

It has happened before. . . .