Strike of Iowa aerospace defense supplier will last at least through the week, union says

Tyler Jett
Des Moines Register

A strike at an eastern Iowa defense supplier will last at least another week, according to the union.

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District Lodge 6 business representative John Herrig said he received an email from Eaton Corp. management Sunday night, saying company representatives won't return to the bargaining table until March 1. 

The message came after the union presented its latest proposals to Ireland-based Eaton on Friday afternoon. Herrig, who declined to share the proposals with the Des Moines Register, said company managers had not responded to them.

The strike at the Eaton-Cobham Mission Systems factory in Davenport began at 12:01 a.m. Friday following the expiration of a five-year contract.

More: UAW members won big gains in their strike of John Deere. Will other Iowa workers follow?

According to a bargaining notice filed in December, IAM lodges 388 and 1191 represent 365 workers at the plant. Herrig said that 98% of those members voted to reject a tentative agreement with the company during a Thursday afternoon meeting at the Davenport Elks Lodge. 

In a news release Saturday, Herrig said that members voted down the contract because the company offered "sub-standard wages" and cuts to health care and retirement benefits. Herrig declined to say specifically what the company offered.

Strikers man the lines outside Eaton/Cobham Mission Systems at 2734 Hickory Grove road as machinist union IAMAW Lodge 388 go on strike Friday in Davenport.

Katie Kennedy, a spokesperson for Eaton's aerospace division, declined to confirm whether company representatives are staying away from talks until March 1.

"We will continue to bargain with the Union and have proposed dates to continue negotiations," she said in an email.

She also said that the two sides have tentatively agreed on almost every element of the contract except the wage rate, on which she described them as being "only marginally apart." Contrary to Herrig's statement, Kennedy said the union and the company reached agreements on health care and retirement benefits. She said the new contract also included more vacation time and "greater schedule certainty and flexibility."

More: While John Deere strike raised union profiles and popularity, membership remains stagnant in Iowa

Employees at Eaton-Cobham Mission Systems make airplane parts for defense contractors, including systems that allow planes to refuel while in the air. Eaton bought the company in June for $2.8 billion. 

Herrig declined to say what explanation the company gave for not coming back to the table for at least another week. He said he believes Eaton managers are trying to pressure the union's rank-and-file members, who will have to subsist on strike pay until they approve a contract.

He did not know when, if ever, the union had gone on strike at the Davenport plant before last week.

Strikers man the lines outside Eaton/Cobham Mission Systems at 2734 Hickory Grove road as machinist union IAMAW Lodge 388 go on strike Friday in Davenport.

Iowa itself has not been a hotbed for strike activity over the last 30 years, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The United Auto Workers' strike of Deere & Co. last October — which included about 7,000 Iowa workers — was the largest in the state since 1993, when the federal government began releasing data.

The Deere strike also was the first involving at least 1,000 Iowa workers since a 2004 Maytag Corp. strike in Newton, according to the BLS.

More: Head of largest U.S. labor group tells striking John Deere workers: 'The nation is watching'

Like the workers at Deere, Herrig said the machinist union's members were more apt to strike after working through the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"It’s tough for employees on one hand to be called essential workers and on the other hand to be treated as if they don’t matter at all," he said.

The majority of the 900 employees at the Davenport site are not union members. As of December, Lodge 388 represented about 350 production and maintenance workers at the factory. Lodge 1191 represented about 20 skilled trades workers.

More: Timeline shows key dates in the John Deere strike

Eaton, with about 92,000 employees in 60 countries, makes a range of power supply products like steering systems, motors and brakes. The company reported $2.15 billion in net income last year. That figure is up significantly from the $1.42 billion that Eaton earned in 2020. But it still lags the company's pre-pandemic performance in 2019, when it reported $2.21 billion in net income.

Cobham Missions Systems recorded about $700 million in annual sales prior Eaton's acquisition. 

Tyler Jett covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at tjett@registermedia.com, 515-284-8215, or on Twitter at @LetsJett.