(TONAWANDA, NEW YORK) – Management at DuPont’s Tonawanda/Yerkes Plant has brought in at least 50 “Scab Workers” in anticipation of what United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6992 might do after it submits a counter-proposal to the Buffalo area manufacturer of Corian and Tedlar Products’ “best, last and final offer,” Union Officials tell WNYLaborToday.com.

Local 6992 President Gary Guralny says his USW Local is reviewing the Western New York company’s offer that it received late last week during a scheduled bargaining session, before it “schedules another meeting to counter what we received.”

However, it appears DuPont is gearing up in anticipation of what the USW Local might do if an agreement on a new contract is not reached, Guralny told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper, after the company brought in “more than fifty scab Workers” over the weekend. 

“They’ve ‘sectioned off’ part of the plant (to keep their USW-represented Workers) ‘away while they train them.’  (DuPont) used Strom Engineering and Staffing Solutions, which brings in such Workers in other plants.  ‘They are nothing more than replacement’ Workers,’” Guralny said Monday (July 10th).  “We can’t stop them, but (the agreed-to extension) of our contract and they seem they are preparing for some possibilities.”

Those “possibilities” could involve either a lock-out of the Union-represented Workforce by management or a Strike called by the Union, but Guralny wasn’t saying which of those might happen – although he did tell WNYLaborToday.com that International Representatives from the USW would be traveling to Western New York in the coming days.

“Right now, we’re ‘reviewing their offer’ and ‘asking more questions’ to ‘support why they are seeking the givebacks they want,’” he continued.  “I’m hoping that by the end of the week we will be presenting our counter-proposal to them.”

USW Local 6992 represents 340 Workers at DuPont’s Yerkes Plant off River Road in Tonawanda where it manufactures Corian (which is used in the manufacturing of counter-tops) and Tedlar (which is used in the Airline Industry) Products – both of which are made with the use of toxic ingredients.

Guralny says the morale of his USW Membership employed at the DuPont Plant is “the ‘best that I have ever seen.’”

Local 6992’s current contract expired on June 18th, but an extension was agreed to two days earlier on June 16th – with a two-week cancellation, which the USW exercised late last week. 

“It ‘had been open-ended,’” Guralny said of the agreement, “but we’ve notified the company we are ‘terminating’ the extension, which will now expire” on Friday (July 14th).

The Union’s previous four-year contract was ratified back in June 2013. 

The USW and DuPont have had a history of rocky roads when it comes to contracts.

It initially took 15 years for the USW to negotiate its first Union Contract and more than one year to come to agreement on its now-expired four-year contract that replaced a previously expired four-year pact. 

The process was sped up by the Local 6992’s high-profile public campaign that exposed unsafe working conditions and toxic chemical exposure inside the plant. 

This time around, the company’s has presented a new four-year deal with yearly wage increases of 1%, 1%, one-half-percent and one-half-percent, Guralny tells WNYLaborToday.com.

However, DuPont is “insisting” the right to contract out work that would be done by USW-represented Plant Employees, as well as institute a new Two-Tier Wage System that would cut new hires’ pay by 40%.

“Those are the ‘two big issues,’” Guralny told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.

“(Last week’s) negotiations ‘did not go well’ because they are ‘insisting on the same language’ (to outsource and institute a new wage system),” Guralny said.  “They used our agreed-to extension as a ‘chance to talk to our Members about the company’s new plant in China.’  ‘Instead of using our ‘good faith’ opportunity, they told our Members that they ‘can’t compete’ (with wages here).’”

However, it does not seem as though DuPont has learned a lesson after the last go-around.

USW Local 6992 has held several informational rallies outside the plant entrance over the past couple of weeks. 

More public actions are certain to occur should a new contract agreement not be reached by the end of the week.  

However, USW Representatives declined to address those questions of what may happen until the results are known of their submitted counter-proposal later this week.