Workers at Randolph County facility return to work, strike on hold
BEVERLY, W.Va. — AHF Products’ employees returned to work at the Beverly hardwood plant on Monday after voting down a proposed contract Sunday.
AHF, a subsidiary of American Industrial Partners, purchased the plant from Armstrong Flooring in 2018 before expanding on the existing building.
In November of 2019, AHF Products held a ribbon cutting to honor the new 85,000-square foot expansion to the Beverly plant, which was expected to add up to 50 new jobs within the facility.
“The contract has expired. We do not want a strike and are willing to come to the table as long as the union does not place preconditions on those negotiations. It’s businesses as usual at this point,” Blaine Emery, plant manager at AHF’s Beverly location, said in a press release.
Luke Farley, representative of union group Teamsters Local 175, spoke with The Inter-Mountain Monday afternoon about the situation going forward.
“The employees did vote to strike. We reached out to the company to tell them the results of the vote. If they want to make some sort of attempt, some sort of meaningful change to try and get an agreement then we’re definitely more than willing to sit down and negotiate,” Farley said.
“Currently the employees are working day to day,” he said. “There’s no formal extension and they’re just working day to day which means they could strike at any time.”
Farley noted that union members have some questions about Emery’s statement.
“We asked what the company means by ‘preconditions’ and nobody was able to answer that question. All our point was that you have an agreement that’s been rejected by 93%,” he said. …
Read more: https://www.theintermountain.com/news/local-news/2020/02/ahf-union-continue-negotiations/
