MADISON COUNTY, Alabama — Workers at the Aerojet Rocketdyne facility in Huntsville, Alabama, have made an important decision to unionize, and after putting in their petition, an election will be held on Wednesday, June 28, during which workers will vote on whether or not to organize.
As per the “About Us” on their website, “Aerojet Rocketdyne is a world-class developer and manufacturer of advanced propulsion and energetics systems for customers including the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and other agencies and companies, both in the United States and abroad,” providing everything from “propulsion and power systems for launch vehicles, satellites and other space vehicles” to strategic missiles and missile defense, as well as tactical systems and armaments. As their website proudly boasts, they “have been at the heart of virtually every major U.S. space and missile program since the dawn of the space age.”
The facility in Huntsville is an off-shoot of the primary company headquarters in California, coming to Alabama after a major deal was struck and the project development was given the greenlight by the Huntsville City Council in 2017. While this number has since grown, at the time of the deal it was estimated that this new facility would have over 700 workers. And since the facility officially became active, it didn’t take long at all to prove it was a great fit for Rocket City.
The question is: Why do the workers seem so eager to organize?
Last Saturday on The Valley Labor Report, host Jacob Morrison was joined by two guests, Eric Williams, a local Aerojet Rocketdyne worker, and Phillip French, a district organizer for the IAMAW union, to discuss the situation.
According to Williams, among the many factors behind the decision to unionize was the fact that there were some major inconsistencies between what new hires were told by the company during the hiring process and what the realities were once they were fully part of the company, especially in relation to promotions and growth within the workplace.
“They would tell you that, ‘the more you learn, the quicker you’ll move up, and the quicker you move up, the more compensation you’ll get for that’… And that wasn’t true.” said Williams during the discussion. “Also… they changed the Management — I’ve gone through six managers in three years.” While this may not initially seem like a big deal, Williams explained that it took a toll on workers because every manager would have a different way of wanting to do things, so workers’ routines were constantly being disrupted and changed.
Williams went on to explain another major factor was how the company’s treatment of and compensation for workers did not change or grow to reflect the high quality and the high standards according to which the workers had been producing. “We have produced above and beyond what they figured that we would be able to do… We get a lot of ‘appreciation’, but no compensation.” Williams said that while workers appreciate the “appreciation”… that doesn’t pay the bills.
In addition, according to Williams, the Huntsville facility is lacking a stable structure and there is a considerable degree of disorganization and little to no reliable consistency. In fact, other workers told Morrison that there have been several instances where a person with no experience whatsoever was effectively pulled off the street, given work at the facility, and given promotions and compensation quicker and higher than other workers who had been with the company for years.
“The morale is very low,” said Williams.
Workers at the Aerojet Rocketdyne facility in Huntsville have simply reached a point where they have had enough; they want some form of consistency and reliability from this company that they have put so much effort into. And it didn’t take much thinking or deliberating for them to come to the conclusion that organizing was their best option to achieve that.
For a full discussion on what lead to this decision to organize, as well as what organizing will mean, watch the full interview on YouTube: