There's a lot of handwringing over hand tools in Chicago lately.

At 5:30 this morning, dozens of workers were scheduled to strike outside a Chicago factory of McCook-based SK Hand Tools Corp. The walkout is the workers' latest effort to try to win back their health-care benefits and negotiate better wages.

In May, Teamsters Local 743 charged SK Hand Tool Corp. with an unfair labor practice, alleging that the company unilaterally took away health benefits for its workers. Friday, the case ratcheted up a notch: The union followed up its earlier complaint to the National Labor Relations Board with another that said SK administrators wouldn't provide information on financial or health-insurance matters for collective-bargaining purposes.

That charge is still under investigation, but today's strike is a sign the union isn't budging from its demands for health-care benefits.

I called SK headquarters yesterday to ask for a response to the allegations. Bella Keigher, listed as the corporate human-resources manager in the union's filings, answered the phone. I asked to speak with her or President and Chief Executive Officer Claude Fuger, the SK manager who now owns most of the company, about the filings. She asked for my phone number and said she would call me back, but hasn't yet.

Richard Berg, president of the Teamsters local, told me he recognizes that the 88-year old company is in financial trouble. As home sales and improvements have slowed, it's easy to see how hand tools would follow suit.

"We've offered concessions. We've offered to help them with health insurance," Berg said. But "basically, they want people to work on the order of no health insurance and the minimum wage. While we're willing to help the company out, we're not willing to work for the minimum wage and no health insurance."

According to the union filings, the company employs about 85 workers in its Southwest Side factory, at 3535 W. 47th St. But Berg said the company has laid off about 25 workers, leaving closer to 50 on the production line.

"It's a shame," Berg said. "Generations of people have worked there and provided good tools for America, and in return they were able to have a decent living."

Founded in 1921, SK for many years made Craftsman tools for Sears.

There's some flag-waving in the union's campaign against administrators. In a statement released shortly after the union's strike vote yesterday afternoon, Berg takes a patriotic, perhaps even nationalistic, tone in referring to Fuger's ownership of the company.

"President Obama is leading a national debate about how to protect hard-working Americans from callous employers like SK Hand Tools,” Berg says in the statement. “This French-owned company has left us no choice but to strike for our basic needs."