Last May, some 800 union members walked off the job at a Caterpillar hydraulics plant in Joliet, Illinois.
After a few weeks, more than 100 returned to work, fed up over the lack of progress in the talks and pinched by the union's $150-a-week strike pay, some workers say.
“They are not effective,” says Steven Olson, 54, a former IAM member who crossed the picket line last summer. “With high unemployment and companies willing to relocate, you just don't have the options that you did 30 years ago. The whole world has changed.”
This month, Mr. Olson and another Caterpillar worker filed an unfair labor practices charge against the union local with the help of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, saying it's illegal to punish them for returning to work. Mark Mix, president of the foundation, says 61 other Caterpillar workers who also crossed the picket line have called the organization looking to lodge similar complaints. “I suspect we will have some more charges here shortly,” he says.
The natives are growing restless - and fed up with union bosses who're insulated from any strike effects: strikes don't affect the cushy pay and premium benefits enjoyed by the bosses; only the rank-and-file ("brothers and sisters) take the hit.
