With a possible strike looming, the Kohler Co. has presented what the company calls its final contract offer to Wisconsin union workers.
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The current contract expires at midnight Saturday.
Union workers at Kohler Company have rejected the company’s latest offer, and are prepared to strike.
The union president, who represents over 2,100 Kohler Co. employees, also added the workers have taken issue with an inadequate pay increase, higher health care costs and the continuation of a two-tier wage that pays newer employees less.
A Kohler spokesman has said the company’s proposal would have raised the average wage for lower-tier workers to above $17 an hour. The U-S Labor Department says there were eleven walkouts a year ago at plants with one-thousand or more employees. Also part of the plan are increases in benefits for health care, plus bonuses, $1,200 for Tier A and $1,000 for Tier B. The company says that will more than offset expected increases in health care costs over the next three years.
The workers accepted these conditions due to the economy still reeling from the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, Kohler said in a statement Sunday they were very disappointed by the union’s decision and “is concerned that union officials may have misrepresented what could could be achieved in a strike”.
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The company said it hoped an agreement would be in place by Sunday and work would continue uninterrupted. While in 1934, a bloody and tense strike transpired at Kohler factory after it opened fire on rioting, stone-throwing workers, leaving two men killed and 47 others injured.
