Bucyrus employees accept new contract

Union employees at Bucyrus International, a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of excavating and mining equipment, have accepted a new contract that will last until April 2010. The company has one factory, in South Milwaukee. Eighty percent of the company’s 330 members of the United Steelworkers of America approved the contract, which will leave mandatory overtime hours open to further discussion and create a two-tier wage-and-benefits structure for new employees. The union’s current contract doesn’t expire until April, buy Bucyrus requested early negotiations, saying it would have little desire to add more factory jobs in South Milwaukee without an agreement. The contract workers accepted this month was essentially the same as one they rejected in October.