PERRYVILLE, Md.—Seniority and salaries are the key issues as a strike by 320 members of Machinists Local 1460 against IKEA at its Perryville, Md., warehouse entered its third week just before so-called “Black Friday.”
IKEA’s warehouse in the Baltimore suburb is one of only three in the U.S. It’s been unionized for 12 years. And its workers have had it up to here with IKEA’s exploitation, its continual jerking around of their assignments and schedules and general disrespect.
Two days of meetings with a federal mediator just before Thanksgiving yielded no progress. The strike began November 15 after workers overwhelmingly rejected IKEA’s latest proposal. The workers seek fair wages to keep pace with the cost of living and use of seniority, rather than management favoritism, in job assignments and scheduling.
“We are disappointed in IKEA’s unwillingness to move on issues critical to our members,” IAM Eastern Territory General Vice President David Sullivan said in a statement. “This strike is about respect and dignity on the job. Our members remain in solidarity in their fight for fair wages and seniority protections, and we won’t back down until IKEA comes back to us with real solutions. Our members are prepared to stand strong for as long as it takes to win the fair treatment they deserve.”
Management calls the workers “family” and the warehouse workers helped garner $2 billion for IKEA this year, but it doesn’t treat them like family, the workers said in a More Perfect Union video. Instead its last contract proposal removed key job protections.
“For a company that says it’s a family company, I don’t see too much of that in this building anymore,” said worker Garrett Hayes. “I think a lot of us are tired of it.” And “somebody that’s been here for two months shouldn’t be able to take a job from me that I’ve been doing for ten years, and that’s the way I think they want to run this operation.”
“They’re wanting us to take our years of service and ball it up and throw it in the trash can,” adds Tom Hildebrand. “They’ll stand up and praise us at startup meetings. But when it comes time to get an increase, and at least bring us up to par, they don’t want to bring up to a decent living wage.”
The favoritism is rampant, say veterans Tiwaan Bradley and Lisa Mengel.
“What happens if I say something management doesn’t like? All of a sudden, I’m put into a more-physical job and I’ve been here 20 years. I’m on the older side. My back don’t bend like it used to. My knees don’t bend like they used to,” Bradley says.
“I have worked here almost 18 years. Don’t take my department from me,” Mengel adds. “I just want to come in, do my job and I want them to leave me alone.
“Seniority is the most important thing. It keeps favoritism at bay. If they don’t care for you or if you’re not one of their quote-unquote ‘favorites,’ they can give you less-likable jobs. They can move you from one job to another to another to another without any real concern for your ability.”
Before the workers unionized, ‘’you were scared to death,” Mengel said. “You never knew what they were going to do to you. I’d come in one day and they would go ‘You’re gonna crawl up to the top of the trailer, you’re gonna lay on top of the products, you’re gonna pull the carpets one by one and put them on a pallet’…You never knew what kind of nightmare it was going to be.”
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