Mercury Marine Moving Jobs to Oklahoma>

The union that represents hundreds of workers at Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac ran out of time Saturday night to vote yes on a package of contract concessions that the boat engine maker said it needed to remain profitable. Mercury Marine will now start moving jobs out of the state.

FOND DU LAC - The union that represents hundreds of workers at Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac ran out of time Saturday night to vote "yes" on a package of contract concessions that the boat engine maker said it needed to remain profitable. Mercury Marine will now start moving jobs out of the state.

"The proposal lapsed and therefore the contract proposal time expired," said Steve Fleming, a company spokesperson.

"This coming week or two we will finalize details of programs that we have with the governments of Oklahoma and Stillwater as well as Wisconsin and Fond du Lac. We expect to be moving work from Fond du Lac to Stillwater by the end of the year."

The union had gathered for a second vote on the concessions package at around 10 o'clock Saturday night, about a week after it overwhelmingly rejected the deal.

Mercury Marine had repeatedly said the deadline for a "yes" vote was midnight, and the union just couldn't assemble enough people in time.

One of the reasons for this was confusion among union members, as some believed the deadline had been extended into late Sunday.

The company said it never approved such an extension.

"That was never agreed upon by us," said Fleming. "We responded to them when we heard that had gone out and we reiterated at that time that the deadline remained midnight."

"We can't run an election on a two hour notice and be fair to any of these members. That's bull! This company ought to be, I don't know, ought to end up in jail," Mark Zillges, Local 1947 president, argued.

JOBS MOVING

A couple hours after the deadline passed, the company released a statement saying it will be moving the 850 union manufacturing jobs to the non-union plant in Oklahoma.

The future of the company's corporate headquarters, which includes more than 1,000 additional jobs, still remains in question. Company officials say "in the near future" they expect to make a decision on to what extent the headquarters will remain in Fond du Lac.

Mercury Marine's post-deadline statement included this message from the company's president Mark Schwabero:

“We want to personally thank the business and community leaders of Fond du Lac and Stillwater, our local and state government officials and all of the committed employees of Mercury Marine who have supported us and given us their full effort during this difficult process. This has been a very difficult and stressful time for all involved but, as we said at the beginning of this process, it is our responsibility to make the best business decisions for the company to have a sustainable future."

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