Thanks to the support of the GCIU and GCIU Rep. Roderick D. Queen, some 850 former employees of the closed Spartan Printing plant in Sparta, Ill., will share about $2 million in unpaid wages, vacation and holiday pay, WARN Act pay, insurance reimbursements, and pension money.

Queen said the outcome of the class lawsuit demonstrates that "the union didn't abandon" its members after the plant closing. "The GCIU has fought for these people ever since that place went down. If they hadn't had a union, they wouldn't have gotten a thing. They couldn't have afforded to hire an attorney to do all this work," he said.

GCIU Pres. George Tedeschi said great work was done by attorney James Singer of Schuchat, Cook and Warner of St. Louis, the International, and Queen in pursuing and getting a fair settlement on this case.

Noting that he served as president of Sparta 383C and then after merger Local 990M for most of the 30 years that he worked at the plant, Queen said: "I was fighting for something I believed in."

Spartan Printing was a World Color plant that was bought out by Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. (KKR), specialists in leveraged buyouts who were made famous in the book and movie "Barbarians at the Gate," when they maneuvered for control of RJR Nabisco.

When KKR demanded 30 percent concessions from workers despite strong profits at the plant, an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) was formed to counter the KKR ownership.

However, the company never quite recovered from the previous ownership and filed for bankruptcy in 1995.

The GCIU solicited members to join in a class lawsuit to file for claims on various wages and benefits that the company had not paid when it closed down. The union also charged that the company did not provide the proper 60 days notice of closing required by the Worker Notification and Retraining (WARN) Act.

Queen said the union fought for a bankruptcy trustee who was from the Sparta area. Corporate interests had wanted a trustee from Chicago, he said.

Queen said Joel Kunin, the bankruptcy trustee who ultimately was named, "has been very fair with us."

The original claim for the employees was for about $4.2 million. Kunin found that about $2.8 million was left to settle claims.

Kunin reported that he began notifying individuals in early March of the amounts they are due on their claims.

According to a report in the Sparta News-Plaindealer, in addition to employee claims and attorney fees, some outstanding payments also will be made to the GCIU Employer Retirement Fund and the GCIU Supplemental Retirement and Disability Fund on behalf of individual employees.

Queen said he hopes the GCIU members will get paid within four months, pending the outcome of another claim.