(DERBY) - A tentative agreement has been reached between the Buffalo-headquartered New Era Cap Co. and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) on a new agreement that will keep the Buffalo-headquartered, licensed sports cap-maker's nearby Derby plant open where 350 are employed, CWA District 1 Upstate New York and New England Director David Palmer told WNYLaborToday.com this afternoon.  However, the news does means the company will close its Union-represented manufacturing plant in Alabama, CWA officials said.

A ratification vote on the tentative agreement in Derby has been scheduled for Tuesday.  If ratified, Palmer says it "will guarantee the Derby plan will be surviving manufacturing plant for New Era in the United States."  Palmer said he was optimistic about the chances for ratification.  "I think it will be ratified.  We followed our members' direction while looking for efficiencies and cost-savings (in a new agreement)," Palmer told WNYLaborToday.com.

"It's good news for Western New York community.  Unfortunately, it's bad news in Alabama," said Palmer, adding it was his anticipation that CWA will bargain "first refusal for vacancies (at the Derby plant) for Alabama workers who want to be transferred up," he said.  Another 350 CWA-represented workers are employed at New Era's Demopolis, Alabama plant.

On another front, Palmer said CWA will continue to reach out and work with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), as well as and New York's two U.S. Senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, for their help in an overall effort that could ultimately convince the NCAA of the worth of relocating its university products manufacturing base from China to the United States.  If done, those manufacturing jobs would be moved back to U.S. soil and create a number of new jobs at New Era's U.S. manufacturing operation.

"Unfortunately there's not enough time to make traction with USAS, but we will continue to do that.  In the event we're successful, the Derby plant has the capacity to handle that work.  It would mean just adding more jobs," Palmer said.

In late December, Palmer made WNYLaborToday.com aware of what the CWA hoped to accomplish by keeping New Era's two U.S. manufacturing plants here and in Alabama open while moving forward on this unique approach.

"We wanted to try to convince them to keep both plants open and we're confident we can figure this out.  In Derby you have the most senior, productive workforce that makes a quality, on-time product.  (For example,) You could increase production without any additions to that workforce.  In the year 2000, they produced six million hats in Derby," Palmer said.

Buffalo-headquartered New Era recently - which produces a variety of professional and collegiate sports hats and specialty hats - announced it would cut back its U.S. manufacturing plants and had begun the process of making a decision to close either its Derby operation or its Alabama plant.  Each plant produces about six million hats a year, the CWA said.

"(New Era's) volume has fallen off," Palmer had told WNYLaborToday.com several weeks earlier of the economic problems faced by the company, which is most known for its production of hats for Major League Baseball.  "What's happened, in this economy, is that people are not buying as many hats anymore, and the boutique-type/specialized hats they've been making for small companies is drying up because those businesses are closing.  So they're rolling back their manufacturing operation to 'pre-1998.'  The company has said it hopes the level of business will come back at the end of 2010.  When that up-tick happens, they've told us they'll look to hire more employees."