Union leaders, Mercury Marine president talking

FOND DU LAC, Wis. -- Two days after the union at Mercury Marine rejected a package of wage and benefit concessions, the company president and some union leaders are meeting behind closed doors.

Company spokesman Steve Fleming said President Mark Schwabero and two union leaders began meeting about 2 p.m. Tuesday at the sprawling boat engine maker's plant.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 1947, said its 850 members voted overwhelmingly Sunday to reject what Mercury Marine called its final offer to rework a four-year labor contract. The company said the offer remains valid until midnight Saturday.

The world's largest manufacturer of boat and recreational marine engines says that without the labor concessions, it will move many of its 850 Fond du Lac manufacturing jobs to a nonunion plant in Stillwater, Okla.