Nearly $2.2 million in back pay has been distributed to GCIU members in Atlanta locals 8M and 96B, Omaha 543M, and Lincoln 221M who were involved in the strikes against American Signature that began in 1993.

Under the settlement reached last year over unfair labor practices related to the strikes, the International union also received partial reimbursement for its legal fees and strike benefits, reported attorney Tom Allison of Chicago-based Allison, Slutsky & Kennedy.

Allison said that the union had "one year to find 570 former employees to share in the back pay. The deadline expired on Sept. 10, and we found all but three of the employees."

Allison reported that 193 eligible strikers from Lincoln 221M received $276,869 in back pay. Another 242 eligible strikers from Omaha 543M received $348,131 in backpay from the company's unfair labor practices at its Lincoln, Neb., plant.

"The cases in Lincoln are over," Allison said. "Back pay has been paid to all of the former Local 221M and 543M strikers who were not immediately recalled to the plant at the conclusion of the strike. The amount of each person's back pay was based on the length of time their recall was delayed."

Thirty-nine eligible former strikers represented by Atlanta 96B received $168,823 in back pay. The 71 eligible former strikers from Atlanta 8M received $168,823.

In addition, the 19 workers from the two Atlanta locals who were discriminated against received $1,543,109 in back pay. These were union workers at American Signature whom Heller International refused to hire when it took control of the plants in 1992.

Allison said the back pay in Atlanta ends the American Signature portion of the cases.

However, back pay claims are still pending for former strikers who were not immediately hired by Quebecor when it bought the plant in January 1997, Allison said. Those charges await a decision by the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., following Quebecor's appeal of the ruling in favor of the GCIU by Administrative Law Judge Lawrence Cullen.