Newspaper Article

New Haven, Conn., citizens' group rallies at Winchester plant, demands payment

Higgins, Steve

2006

Overview

[Craig Gauthier] said the displaced workers called on him because he was involved with the citizens' group after it was formed during a 1979 strike and because Gauthier was involved in the tax abatement negotiations. \"We have felt since 2000 that Herstal's plan was to eventually move the plant either to South Carolina or some other place where people weren't making the money that we had won over the years,\" Gauthier said, citing strikes held in 1969 and 1979 and a 1973 walkout. \"Those wages and benefits came from people's suffering.\" \"Our dream was that it would be a place that workers could continue to work and their kids could come there to work. It gave people a future.\" In return for those concessions, Gauthier said, the workers should get the $850,000 in back taxes Herstal recently paid the city. They also deserve the money because they lost four months of pay and benefits when Herstal gave only two months' notice of the closing, he said. However, aldermanic President Carl Goldfield said the money already has been budgeted.

• Publisher: Tribune Content Agency LLC
• Subject: Employment / Gauthier, Craig / Goldfield, Carl / Public hearings / Tax abatement