Triumph Composite Systems

Triumph Composite Systems is pleased to announce that its contract with the Local IAM (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) District 751 was ratified today by its membership. The four-year collective bargaining agreement covers approximately 400 production workers at the companys Spokane facility. This is the first time si... nce 2007 that the workers are being covered under a four-year contract vs. a three-year one. The new contract provides improvements to wages and benefits. It is troubling to hear people accuse us of threatening to remove retirement plans for our employees. That is simply not true. We remain committed to continuing to contribute to the pension fund for our IAM-represented employees hired before May 2013. Like other companies responding to economic realities, for employees hired after May 2013, we have moved from a defined pension plan to a 401k plan. Furthermore, no new employees, union or non-union, hired at any Triumph location are eligible for participation in any Triumph-sponsored pension plan. Our choice was to fully honor our agreements with our long-term employees while offering a 401k retirement savings plan for our new workers. In the face of rising healthcare costs, Triumph has made necessary changes to control costs while also providing our employees with an excellent level of care, and we continue to provide better health benefits than many companies. Triumph employees pay about 15 percent of the cost of their healthcare, which is less than others in the industry, while the company still covers 85 percent. This remains a very good deal for our IAM-represented employees. To be competitive and sustain our business, we introduced a two-tier wage system in May 2013. Even with that change, the average earnings in 2015 for IAM-represented employees was approximately $55,000, 15 to 20 percent more on average than those with similar jobs in our region according to Bureau of Labor Statistics compensation data. Since 2009, we have continued to inform our work force ...Read More