Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Metropolis, Illinois, has two powerful distinctions that separate it from all other cities in America. One, it’s the self-proclaimed hometown of Superman. Two, it’s home to the nation’s only uranium conversion plant—where striking workers are refusing to accept cuts in pensions and health benefits after years of watching colleagues die of cancer.
Honeywell, which operates the uranium plant, locked out its 220 employees near the end of June, and replaced them with new workers. The unionized employees have continued to picket the plant, where over the years 42 have died of cancer and another 27 have survived the disease.
The Honeywell plant converts powdery “yellow cake” uranium into “green salt” and then into uranium hexafluoride, where it’s used in commercial nuclear reactors. It’s the only facility of its kind in the U.S. that performs this important function for the nuclear power industry.
Not surprisingly, the strike caused a spike in uranium prices, at times as much as 25%.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Uranium, Not Kryptonite, Worries Superman's Hometown in Illinois (by Todd Frankel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
In Superman’s Hometown, a Labor Dispute Over Health (by Dan Frosch, New York Times)
Comments