Some good news, finally...

[Earth Bound Misfit]

Union wins $15.5M in MidwestGen strike settlement
By: Steve Daniels Aug. 08, 2008
(Crain’s) — Workers who struck and then were locked out at Chicago-area coal-fired power plants owned by Midwest Generation LLC have won a $15.5 million settlement from the company.

The settlement brings to a close years of contentious litigation surrounding the 2001 strike against MidwestGen by Local 15 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The strike ended disastrously for the union, which agreed to come back to work without a contract while terms of a new deal could be negotiated.

Then the company — a unit of California-based electric utility Edison International, which bought the coal plants from Commonwealth Edison Co. in 1999 — locked out the union for close to seven weeks and won concessions in the pact that ultimately was negotiated.

The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging the company selectively locked out certain union workers while allowing others who’d earlier crossed the picket lines to keep working. The NLRB sided with the company, but a federal Appeals Court overturned that decision in 2005 and sent the case back to the NLRB. The settlement, reached Thursday and mediated by the NLRB, resolves the issues.

More than 1,000 current and former workers are eligible for back pay under the settlement. Each worker will get between $10,000 and $20,000, says Marilyn S. Teitelbaum, attorney for the union with the St. Louis firm of Schuchat Cook & Werner.

Dean Apple, president of Local 15, said in a statement that the settlement should help both sides “have a more productive and cooperative relationship in the future.”

Said a company spokesman: “We’re pleased to have it settled. It brings an end to all the issues surrounding the strike of 2001.”

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=30534

[Hope And Change]

1. Yay...K & R!

[Earth Bound Misfit]

2. "Self" kick n/t