During the week of January 9th, workers of International Association of Machinists Local 1211 voted to go on strike for the first time since 1974. Contracts between IAM workers and the Parker Lord plant in Erie have historically been stable, ensuring strong wages and solid benefits. This came to an end when Parker Lord rejected the IAM’s demand to add a strengthened cost-of-living adjustment to the contract.
This past contract was in effect for five years and began when the COVID-19 pandemic started. Because of the inflation spike from 2021 to 2022, workers’ effective wages are now lower than they were in 2020. IAM Local 1211 is seeking an approximately 10% increase in wages to compensate for this shortfall. This is not an unreasonable demand from the workers, in my view.
According to Parker Hannifin’s FY 2025 report, the company profited $3.5 billion. In the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, the company also announced an agreement to acquire Curtis Instruments and repurchased $851 million in shares. The CEO, Jennifer Parmentier, received a total compensation package exceeding $19.3 million, according to salary.com. Over the past three fiscal years, her compensation has increased by more than 17%. In 2024, the AFL-CIO estimated that Parmentier’s compensation was more than 305 times that of the median worker…