Locked out for more than a week, Hanford Guards Union Local 21 members were to vote Friday on a new contract with the Department of Energy’s landlord for the Hanford Site in Washington state, a union official said Thursday..
Local 21 President Chris Hall told Exchange Monitor via email the union will vote on a new proposal from Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS). But there is “not much difference from the last one” that members rejected in late November, Hall said.
Also Thursday, an HMIS spokesperson said the contractor believes post-Thanksgiving week talks have been productive and said a modified contract offer was presented to the union.
Despite union offers to keep working during negotiations, HMIS refused and locked out the unionized guards when the latest contract extension expired Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving, Hall said.
“The original contract expired on Nov. 1 and has been extended three times before expiring on Nov. 27,” an HMIS spokesperson said Monday.
Early in the week, union and HMIS bargainers were in separate rooms with a federal mediator ferrying information back-and-forth between the parties. By Thursday, however, the two sides were holding in-person talks, the parties said.
In addition to getting members back to work soon, the Hanford Guards Union is seeking “medical autonomy,” Hall said. This means the armed security patrol guards want to make up their own minds about taking future vaccines or medical treatments, he added.
Scores of Hanford guards signed onto an unsuccessful legal challenge stemming from COVID vaccination requirements at Hanford a couple of years ago. With the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, DOE stopped asking federal and contract workers to reveal their vaccination status. The union wants to avoid similar future mandates, whether from “monkeypox,” now known as mpox, or something else, Hall said.
HMIS wanted the union to take action on a modified contract proposal submitted to the guards Nov. 25, Hall said. The union official said the company’s offer last week too closely resembled a proposal rejected by about 99% of the Hanford guards the week before.
“We have never done this” at Hanford before, Hall said, adding Hanford contractors have typically kept union members on the job when an existing agreement expires. It is important to “get the body back to work,” Hall said.
Since Nov. 27, HMIS used a “skeleton crew” of former-guards-turned supervisors already based at Hanford, as well as other salaried personnel brought in from elsewhere in the DOE complex, Hall said. The number of union guard members affected by the current contract talks is in “triple digits,” he said.
The HMIS spokesperson said about two-thirds of Hanford Patrol are members of the union’s bargaining unit but the other third are salaried employees. All personnel being brought in to make up for the union members are salaried DOE-certified security police officers, the contractor spokesperson said.
HMIS is made up of Leidos, Centerra and Parsons. The joint venture has a $3.9-billion contract to oversee roads, grounds, firefighting, security and other site services at Hanford. The contract’s five-year base period ends in August 2025, according to a DOE chart.
