
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 6, 1995                   TAG: 9501060078
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

DUPONT, VA. UNION SIGN 2-YEAR CONTRACT

DuPont Co. has signed a two-year contract with its 1,500-member union at the Spruance Fibers Plant in Chesterfield County. The deal ended eight years of bargaining.

``We've never had a two-year contract,'' said Bruce Harris, secretary of the Ampthill Rayon Workers, which represents production and maintenance workers at the fibers plant. The union ratified the contract by a 3-to-1 margin, Harris said.

The agreement reached Wednesday includes provisions to help fired workers, such as doubling back pay they can claim if they are reinstated. It also speeds up the arbitration process with the company and keeps current work rules in effect until early 1997.

In return, DuPont won the right to put Spruance's hourly workers on a twice-a-month pay system used throughout the company. The workers had been paid weekly. The company also agreed to pay $529,000 in back wages that resulted from converting to the new pay system.

The agreement allows DuPont to overhaul rules that prevented workers from being trained in multiple tasks on the assembly line or around the plant.

Plant manager John Grohusky said the contract staved off a court fight with the union.

Last summer, the union won a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board charging DuPont with not bargaining in good faith.

Both sides sounded happy the dispute was over.

``We haven't had a signed contract since the last one expired in 1987,'' said Harris. He estimated the union met 230 times with DuPont's management over the past eight years.

- Associated Press

by CNB