WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Pictured above, United Steelworkers (USW) District 4 Staff Representative Brigitte Womer (in the middle) meets with REM-tronics Employees Mona Ballard (on the left) and Erica Fred (on the right) at USW District 4’s Offices in Suburban Buffalo.  The two women are part of a 70-Member USW-represented Workforce employed at the company’s Dunkirk Facility, which has announced it will close its doors this November.  The two USW Members met with WNYLaborToday.com to discuss their anger and disappointment in the way the closing has been handled, in addition to the way the company used its local Workforce to gain an undisclosed amount in Federal Stimulus dollars to keep the Chautauqua County Facility going during the Coronavirus Pandemic.   (WNYLaborToday.com Photos)

(DUNKIRK, NEW YORK) – Since early this year, United Steelworkers (USW)-represented Employees of Gowanda REM-tronics in the Chautauqua County City of Dunkirk have worked through the Coronavirus Pandemic as Essential Workers for the contract manufacturer of highly-reliability products for the aerospace, industrial, medical and military industries. 

In essence, they agreed to put their health on the line for a company that now says it’s closing because of the pandemic - which company officials say has negatively impacted the avionics and fiber optics sensor markets.

But that didn’t stop Gowanda Rem-tronics from successfully applying for, with the help of their Union-represented Workforce of 70 – who filled out form letters at the request of the company to eventually help gain approval of an undisclosed amount of Federal Stimulus Funding for their Western New York Facility.

Adding insult to injury, the company is now moving its Western New York operation to a Non-Union Plant in the Right-to-Work (for less) State of Kansas.

That, according to both Mona Ballard (pictured below on the left) and Erica Fred (on the right) - both Members of USW Local 2693-3 who’ve spent a combined 13 years working for REM-tronics, which, they say, has left them and their fellow Co-Workers more than disheartened.

In fact, it’s left them feeling as though they were used by the company to not only do the work that placed their health - and the health of their families that they came home to at the end of the day - in jeopardy, but used in terms of helping their employer successfully apply for Federal Stimulus dollars.

The average hourly wage of those soon-to-be displaced REM-tronics Workers ranges from $12 to $16 an hour, according to USW District 4 Representatives.

Asked if she was angry about the announced closing and the way the company handled the situation, Ballard of Forestville, who’s worked at the Dunkirk Facility for the past eight years, told WNYLaborToday.com: “That’s an ‘understatement.’”

“It’s ‘horrible.’  ‘It makes my blood boil,’” she told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper, adding she thought she could “trust” REM-tronics management - in the middle of a pandemic - to do the right thing.

Her Co-Worker, Fred of Dunkirk, who’s worked at the Chautauqua County Plant for five years, stayed home with her two children – age three and four, while her husband, Juan, who has worked at the REM-tronics Facility for the past two years went in, day after day after day.

“I ‘filled out a form so they could get that stimulus money,’” she told WNYLaborToday.com.  “I didn’t want (Juan) to go to work (either).  ‘It was very scary, because my son has asthma.’  (Juan) would take his (work) clothes off (before coming into the house) and then shower (before inter-acting with his family).” 

Both Ballard and Fred were elevated to Area Coordinators inside the REM-tronics Plant, USW Sub-District 4 Director Jim Briggs told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper, which the women said “showed how the company ‘valued them as key Employees.’” 

But during this COVID-19 Pandemic, they charged the company has enforced “no discipline” inside the plant when it comes to making sure Employees wear masks to cover their faces and that there is a lack of social distancing rules being allowed inside the facility.

“The company dismantled a ‘clean room’ and now the Workers are ‘working in clusters,’” Briggs said.  “These Workers ‘are unable to distance because they are sitting next to each other.’”

Twenty-three product manufacturing lines have now been whittled down to “five or six” inside the plant at the same time that no tape appears on the floor to maintain social distancing and no strict rule is posted, which allows anyone inside the plant to make up his or her mind when it comes to wearing a mask to keep themselves and others safe, Briggs said.

“Even management ‘is not wearing’ masks” when speaking to company Workers, he added.

The USW bargained a new three-year contract in 2019 with REM-tronics and had agreed to review wages in the second year of the deal due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, both Briggs and USW Staff Representative Brigitte Womer tell WNYLaborToday.com.

But during a scheduled meeting that was held earlier this month to discuss the wage issue, company officials took the easy way out - deferring to meet in a Zoom meeting and telling the USW that REM-tronics would be closing the plant at the end of November, just after Thanksgiving and just before the Christmas Holidays.

“While ‘in my gut, I believe there is some truth that the industries (the company serves) are down, but this breaks my heart (for the Workforce in terms of) how they were notified (of the closing).’  It is ‘absolutely disgusting.’  ‘People who dedicated their lives to this company, some with more than thirty years (working there) and they wouldn’t tell them to their face,’” said Womer, who is also working to assist USW Members employed at the plant face their upcoming monthly bills and home obligations as they prepare to lose their jobs.

Both Briggs and Womer said the USW is exploring “legal options” through the Union’s Legal Department, as well as reaching out to local officials - including New York State’s Empire State Development arm, which reportedly has provided financial assistance to the company over the years, the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency, which provided REM-tronics with a reported more than $400,000 in financial aid, and Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas, “who had no idea REM-tronics was planning to close its plant.”

“We’re ‘very scared’ (of what comes next),” Fred told WNYLaborToday.com.  “We ‘put everything into that company.’”

Briggs (pictured below) was more outspoken in his anger and frustration and said Elected Officials - from the local to the Federal level, must also be held accountable when it comes to making decisions to dole out taxpayer dollars to companies who take the money and then pack up and leave.

“I ‘intend to have discussions with all of them, as well as find out what we can legally do to create some fairness here,’” Briggs told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.  “This is ‘impacting so many people’s lives and their families’ lives.’  ‘We will do whatever we can - and do the best that we can (including working with the Mayor’s Office to find possible re-employment opportunities - including at the newly-built Global Biopharmaceutical Company Athenex Plant and at Fieldbrook Foods Ice Cream Plant, which plans a major expansion), but this company ‘misled their people and has no remorse (for what they’ve done).  ‘We want the public to know this.’  ‘(REM-tronics) got government tax breaks and Federal Stimulus money and now they’re moving out - screwing their people.’  ‘It’s time for this to stop.’”

Gowanda REM-tronics, located on Brigham Road, was formed in April 2019 after Gowanda Components Group took over REM-tronics, which had been in nearby Silver Creek from 1950 to 2010, when it relocated to the City of Dunkirk, according to The Dunkirk Observer.

According to the Gowanda Components Group website, it has eight facilities: Gowanda REM-tronics in Dunkirk; Gowanda Electronics in Gowanda; GCG Tech Center in Gowanda; Butler Winding, Communication Coil, Instec Filters and TTE Filters in Arcade, New York; HiSonic in Olathe, Kansas; DYCO Electronics in Hornell, New York; Microwave Circuits in Beltsville, Maryland; and RCD Components in Manchester, New Hampshire.