The 1986 Strike at Colt Firearms: Deconstructing A Breakdown

in Labor Relations

David Fox

History and Philosophy

Advisor: Dr. Jay Garcia

In 1985, Colt Firearms employed more than 1,200 workers and earned a healthy profit.

Colt’s workforce was represented by the United Automobile Workers’ Union, Local 376.

On April 1, 1985, the contract between the union and the company expired, and negotiations on a new contract had not been successful.

Colt employees continued to work for 10 months without a contract, before walking out on strike on January 24, 1986.

The strike lasted four years, being finally resolved in 1990 with a buyout by the union, the State of CT, and private investors.

Goals and Methodology Two main questions:

1. Why did negotiations over a new contract fail in 1985?

2. Why did the union and the company proceed as they did in trying to solve the problem posed by the failure of negotiations, and why did their actions lead ultimately to the lengthy strike?

My main source of information was the transcript of a hearing on the strike before the National Labor Relations Board, which includes thousands of pages of testimony from almost everyone involved.

I interviewed several participants in the process, including a striker and the president of the Union, and reviewed press coverage of the events.

Background

Results Why did contract negotiations break down?

There were too many non-economic proposals on the table, which kept wages and benefits from being discussed until the last day of negotiations.

The company presented a number of proposals as “musts” and not open to negotiation.

The company leadership was new and inexperienced with negotiations.

Both sides were preoccupied with creating a favorable record for the future litigation before the National Labor Relations Board that they thought to be inevitable, instead of focused on reaching an agreement.

Why did the union and the company react as they did to the failure of negotiations?

The union leadership thought the company was trying to force a strike to either break the union or as an excuse to relocate, so their initial goal was to avoid a strike.

Once the contract expired, each side tried to make the current work environment untenable as a way of pressuring the other into making concessions in negotiations.

– Fights about overtime, increased discipline, and reports of vandalism

The result was a widening gulf between workers and management and high tension in the plant

By January, 1986 there was so much anger between the sides that the workers were pressuring the union to strike.

Once the strike started, the union and the company both largely stuck to the same negotiating strategies, so the same factors that had prevented agreement all along served to prolong the strike.

The company quickly moved to hire permanent replacements, preventing a settlement because the union would not return to work unless all of its members could get their jobs back.

In Summary:

Three Key Factors in Explaining the Strike

The company did not treat the union as having legitimate interests of its own, but rather as an obstacle to be dealt with in pursing company policy.

The union’s attempt to stay on the job and pressure the company into settling merely served to further alienate workers from management, reducing the chances of a negotiated settlement.

Neither side was respectful enough of the terrible consequences of a long strike.