Tsubaki striking workers finally win one

SANDUSKY — Strikes end, but court cases drag on for years.The Tsubaki strike in Sandusky began in 2011 and ended in defeat for the workers and a victory for the company in 2012 when the National Labor Relations Board ruled against the strikers.But the 86 former striking Tsubaki employees who lost their jobs and received unemployment compensation have only just learned that they won't have to pay it back.Ohio's Sixth District Court of Appeals ruled in the workers' favor in March, upholding earlier decisions by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and Erie County Common Pleas Court that the workers were entitled to their unemployment checks.If Tsubaki had chosen to keep fighting, it could have appeared to the Ohio Supreme Court. But the April 18 deadline to file an appeal came and went, finally ending the case, Attorney General Mike DeWine wrote in a late April letter to former Tsubaki workers. DeWine represented Job and Family Services in the legal battle, defending the department's decision to award unemployment compensation.If the department had lost, the workers would have been forced to pay back their unemployment compensation, said Angela Perez, a spokeswoman for Ohio DJFS.Michael Failor, 62, a now-retired former Tsubaki worker who lives in Sandusky, says he's pleased the courts saw things his way."They wanted us to pay it all back, it seems to me," he said.The Sixth District state appeals court, which ruled 3-0 in the workers' favor, said in a March 4 opinion that the key issue was whether Tsubaki terminated the striking workers when it hired replacements. The appeals judges ruled that the Job and Family Services hearing officer acted reasonably by determining that the Tsubaki workers were terminated when the company began hiring permanent replacements on Feb. 18, 2011.The appeals court's opinion says that the strike took place after union members voted twice to reject tentative contract agreements made by the company and the union.The strike began at the end of January 2011 when the second contract agreement was voted down. Striking workers stubbornly persisted in demonstrating outside Tsubaki's Edgewater Drive plant in Sandusky for more than a year. The strike ended in May 2012 when the National Labor Relations Board found the company didn't violate the National Labor Relations Act.Tsubaki attorney Robert E. Dezort of Cleveland didn't return phone calls Monday and Tuesday asking for comment. Officials at the Sandusky Tsubaki plant didn't return a Monday telephone call.The U.S. Tsubaki plant in Sandusky is one of five U.S. Tsubaki manufacturing plants in the U.S. that make roller chains and other products. The company is a subsidiary of Tsubakimoto Chain Company, which is in Japan.Failor said he still has one piece of unfinished business. He still needs to claim about $900 left on his old Tsubaki 401-K plan."I won't go down and sign any papers," he said. "I feel very uncomfortable going down there."Reach reporter Tom Jackson at jackson@sanduskyregister.com, follow him at www.facebook.com/tomjacksonregister/.Striking Tsubaki workers hold a rally.