By Marilyn Odendahl, Truth Staff
ELKHART — With more than 200 employees picketing in front of corporate headquarters, Conn-Selmer is looking for workers to make musical instruments.
The company would not confirm that its upcoming job fair will be to find replacement workers for the striking Vincent Bach employees. A subsidiary of Conn-Selmer, Vincent Bach lost its work force more than a month ago after union members rejected the company’s contract offer.
The management team still reports to work daily but strikers question how much production is actually being done inside the factory.
An advertisement placed in Sunday’s Truth may contain a clue. The display ad announced that Conn-Selmer is having a job fair with “opportunities in” such areas as buffing, soldering, final assembly, final finish, plating and tool & die.
Although these jobs are like the ones performed in the Vincent Bach factory, the company maintains it just wants to see who is available in the local market.
“As (Conn-Selmer has) two plants and a warehouse in the local community, we are always looking for talent,” stated Steinway spokeswoman Julie Theriault in an e-mail. Steinway Musical Instruments Inc. is the parent company of Conn-Selmer.
Theriault’s e-mail continued, “The job fair will give us the opportunity to evaluate the skill set in the area as well as the availability of workers. Once we’ve done that, we’ll take it from there. Elkhart is the band instrument capital of the U.S. so we expect that there are a number of skilled workers in the area.”
Indeed, the local area has many idle instrument makers, a couple of hundred of whom were laid off by Conn-Selmer during the past several years.
Annual reports from Steinway show it has decreased its total U.S. work force from 2,503 employees in 2000 to 1,884 in 2005.
Vincent Bach workers believe the company is trying to hire workers to do their jobs. “You’ve got skilled labor standing out here on the street,” said Stacy Curtis, 18-year Vincent Bach employee. “They want to hire people who don’t know anything. They won’t negotiate. I don’t understand why they dislike us so much.”
The advertised starting wage of $10 to $24 an hour for semi-skilled labor was more than the company offered the striking workers, said Jerry Stayton, president of United Auto Workers Local 364, the union that represents the Vincent Bach workers. Consequently, he believes the job fair has another purpose.
“I think it’s just another scare tactic,” he said. “People will get scared and they’ll cross the line.” The job fair may have made the strikers more angry than fearful but economic pressures are being to wear on some workers. Curtis can foresee that with 230 employees on strike, some may cross the picket line and return to work just to receive a paycheck.
“The longer you stay out on the line, the harder it gets,” she said. She also noted that some of her colleagues do not want to “come back to this mess” and have already quit to take jobs in other companies.
“Even if we get a contract, it’s only going to be for three years,” she said. The job fair will be on the Elkhart and South Bend campuses of Indiana University South Bend. Ken Baierl, director of communications and marketing at IUSB, said Conn-Selmer had rented the facilities for the event but he did not know when the company made the rental arrangements.
“We don’t anticipate problems with the job fair for people who want to come to it,” Baierl said. “Hopefully it will be a good experience for people looking for work....”
That some of the employees on Indiana University campuses are unionized will probably not impact Conn-Selmer’s plans. The maintenance workers and food service staff are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.
David Warrick, executive director of the Indiana AFSCME Council 62, was surprised to hear of the job fair but said AFSCME probably could do very little because Hoosier public sector employees are restricted on what they can do as a union. However, he noted, “We can voice our concerns if (Conn-Selmer is) hiring replacements for strikers.”
If permanent replacement workers are hired for the Vincent Bach production line, their employment status might change if the union and the company reach a comprise.
Theriault stated in an e-mail, “In the hypothetical situation where an employer decided to hire permanent replacement employees and the strike was later settled, the strike settlement agreement may address whether the replacement employees would remain employed or whether their service would be terminated.
“Since that issue could be resolved through the negotiation process, it would be premature for any employer to speculate as to what would occur when the strike ended.” Pointing to the amount of training and money that would be required to train new workers, Stayton said, “They would just be so far ahead to negotiate with us.” The union and Conn-Selmer have met once since the strike began April 1, and no further meetings have been scheduled.