FORT VALLEY, Ga. (AP) — One year after voting to form a union, workers at a Georgia school bus manufacturer have approved their first collective bargaining agreement.
The United Steelworkers union and Blue Bird Corp. said union members at Blue Bird’s assembly plants and warehouse in Fort Valley voted for a three-year contract between the company and the union.
The union said the contract would give all 1,500 workers a pay rise of at least 12 percent, with some of the lowest-paid workers getting more than 40 percent. The union said the company would contribute to a pension plan for workers, share profits and improve health and safety.
The administration under President Joe Biden had been watching the negotiations closely, in part because Blue Bird had received $40 million in federal aid to build electric school buses.
Biden issued a statement Thursday saying acting Labor Secretary Julie Su helped bring negotiations to a successful conclusion. Collective bargaining after an initial union vote is often hard.
“Congratulations to the members of the United Steelworkers and Blue Bird for proving once again that achieving our clean energy goals is an opportunity to create good-paying union jobs for American workers,” Biden said.
Blue Bird is one of the three largest school bus manufacturers in the United States, along with Thomas Built Buses, a subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG, and IC Bus, a unit of Navistar International.
Blue Bird had urged its employees not to form a union last year, but CEO Phil Horlock said in a statement Friday that collective bargaining had been “very cooperative” and the company “looks forward to a strong partnership with our USW team members.” The company said higher wages, benefits and career opportunities would facilitate Blue Bird attract modern employees.
“We have reached an agreement that will deliver positive results for all involved and further advance our one-team high-performance culture,” Horlock said. “We are confident that the agreement will further strengthen Blue Bird’s position as an employer of choice in the region.”
Blue Bird is a publicly traded company based in Macon. With a total of about 2,000 employees, it has long been the largest private employer in Peach County.
The USW’s election was a remarkable victory for unions in the traditionally unfriendly Deep South.
“Federal investments like this must be accompanied by a seat at the bargaining table for workers,” Dan Flippo, director of United Steelworkers District 9, said in a statement. “Our union has long fought in the South for better wages and working conditions across a wide range of industries, but for too long, corporations and their political cronies have tried to portray the South as a place where they can run from unions, cut corners and pay workers less.”
The percentage of workers in unions nationwide has been sinking for decades, falling to 10 percent last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And private sector workers are far less likely to be union members: Only 6 percent pay dues.
Organized unions make up an even smaller portion of Georgia’s workforce: Only 4.4 percent of workers are union members. The state’s business leaders have long been hostile to unions. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp pushed through a bill this year that would prohibit companies that receive state incentives from recognizing unions without a formal secret ballot election.
