increased sales abroad. Some 60% of its sales from designing, manufacturing and servicing compressors and turbines for the oil, gas and other industries are exports to India, China, Rus- sia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. “We saved hundreds of jobs,” Casillo said. Elliott operates manufacturing plants in Jeannette and
Sodegaura, Japan. Sodegaura was built in 1975 when Ebara was an Elliott licensee. Te two cooperate in manufacturing, research and development and other areas, including cross- training. American workers have gone to Japan to learn how to operate new equipment.
lion office building was erected on the 100-acre campus that Elliott has occupied since 1914. Te new facility was dedicated in August 2012. Inside the factory walls, there is new equipment and ma-
chine tools including expensive computer-controlled milling machines that produce impellers, the rotating components of centrifugal pumps. Some 340 tractor-trailer loads of unused materials were removed from the site. Once dingy shop space now is clean and productive. Te turnaround can be traced to a new group of local
union leaders who were first elected in 2009. Tey took a fresh view of labor relations with help from the Federal Media- tion and Conciliation Service and the encouragement of District 10 Director John De- Fazio and staff representative Richard Pastore, now retired. “Te old way of business
clearly wasn’t working,” said Timothy Wilkinson, Lo- cal 1145 unit griever. “Te company wasn’t investing. Our membership was declining and we had very combative labor-management relations. We all thought there had to be a better way.” Management and union
Dan McCullough dresses an impeller used in the rotating equipment that the Elliott Group manufactures.
Elliott employs about 1200 in Western Pennsylvania at
Jeannette and two other nearby facilities. It has added 200 employees over the last two years and was on track to add another 100 workers by the end of 2012. Jeannette alone em- ploys 900, including roughly 400 USW-represented workers as well as engineers, draſtsmen, programmers and adminis- trative employees. Chris Malik, 22, joined the company in November 2011,
lured by the promise of full-time work with benefits. He had previously been a part-time steam generation technician for Westinghouse. “Tis is definitely a big career move for me, a good op-
portunity,’’ Malik said while building a rotor assembly. “It is someplace where, hopefully, I can stay for the next 40 years.”
Investment Inside and Out Te turnaround at Elliott has been extensive. Factory roofs
were rebuilt at a cost of $3 million, and a multimillion-dollar high-voltage power substation was installed. A new $16 mil-
officers each admitted be- ing caught up in a relentless cycle of stubborn resistance and blaming each other for
problems rather than finding and fixing the causes. It was not unusual for voices to be raised. “We had some oppositional people of the old school and I
was one of them,” said William (Woody) Held, president of the local’s office and clerical unit. “You dig in your heels. Tey dig in their heels. And like two rams on a hill, you rear up and you butt heads.” Tat way of doing business led to a long stalemate that leſt
union members without a new contract for four years until a settlement was reached in 2008 with the assistance of federal mediators. Over those four years, there were no changes in wages or benefits. Morale was poor and grievances and arbi- tration cases piled up. “It was a very long, difficult and contentious process,’’ said
Brian Lapp, vice president of human resources. “I don’t think either party was happy with the process in any shape or form.” When the new union leadership took office the year follow-
ing the contract settlement, they began to talk about doing things differently. Tey even crashed a company sales event,
Energy Manufacturing 2013 87
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