Strikers can't win for losing.

• Position: Triangle

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. About 110 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at Moncure Plywood LLC--nearly half the 225-person work force--walked off the job last July, complaining about longer work weeks and higher health-insurance costs. With unemployment in Chatham County only 5.6%, there wouldn't be a lot of people clamoring to replace them.

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But the strike that many workers expected to last only a few weeks dragged into the fall and winter, then the spring. As other factories shut down, they shed employees; Moncure Plywood hired them. Meanwhile, strikers were living on $150 a week from the union strike fund.

In April, the union and company agreed on a three-year contract that ended the strike but not the workers' woes. Many might have lost their jobs for good. That's because the recession hammered the company, which makes plywood for the struggling furniture industry. Moncure Plywood agreed to rehire only 25 strikers immediately. In early May, it was deciding whether to recall more.

Jeff Matuszak, sales and marketing manager at the plant, says the tanking economy forced the company to start laying off workers in October, cutting about 70 jobs before the end of the year. By the time the strike ended, it was down to 106 and was up to only 116 in early May. "The economic downturn was the main reason for the drop in...