BUTTE — A vote to strike was put forward after contract negotiations between Butte-Silver Bow County and machinists with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 88 recently came to a standstill.
But now, they are going back to the table one more time in an effort to come up with what they consider a fair contract.
"We’re kind of a well-rounded group in here. We can work on just about anything if called to, so some days — most days I work on fire trucks — but if need be I can work on an excavator or a plow or forklift or a weed whacker, whatever it calls for," says Tim Seymour, mechanic for B-SB.
Seymour is one of nine machinists tasked with working on over 900 pieces of equipment — some of which are completely unique to Butte — in a behind-the-scenes role that allows other departments to get back to work when their equipment fails.
"I think that people just don’t know that we’re here but it’s one of those things that if we weren’t here you would definitely know that we were gone," says Seymour. He says if equipment can't come to the county shops for work, they head out to the equipment.
The machinists have been negotiating their contract since April. They are one of five unions in the county in contract negotiations. Recently the county made a final offer for a 3% raise for all county employees.
Seymour and his team say this offer is not fair and only benefits county employees making around $100,000.
"What we are asking for from the county is to come away from that percentage base and go to a dollar-based bargaining so that we can close that gap a little bit because the top is getting further away from the bottom and we want to close that gap for everybody in the county," says Seymour.
"I...you can feel where you understand, you know, the upper management and things like that when they go across the board... seems iniquity," says Jim Kambich, the chief of staff for Butte-Silver Bow County. "But there’s a lot of other things within the contract that these... that our employees under contract get that basically don’t come in the total compensation package."
Kambich has been in on the negotiations with the Local 88 for months. He says the county has submitted a joint request to the Montana Board of Appeals for mediation as the next step in the process.
"I know everybody in the county works really hard and they’re really good at their craft and we enjoy our job. We really like our jobs. We just want to close that gap a little bit," says Seymour as he gets to work on one of two fire trucks in the shop.
"In a perfect world, you’d like to be able to help everyone as much as you can. But when it really comes down to it, there are only so many tax dollars and we do have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of this community," says Kambich.
Seymour and his co-workers say they did vote to go on strike but they are willing to try one more time to reach an agreement with the county.
Currently, there are five unions under negotiations with Butte-Silver Bow. Kambich says Butte-Silver Bow hopes to wrap up negotiations by December.
"In my lifetime I’ve been told that fair is not just what’s good for you. It’s what’s good for you and me and we don’t feel we’ve been treated fairly," says Seymour.
