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Bargaining Digest Weekly |
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The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 800 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
US Airways’ hostile takeover bid for Delta continues to draw fire from unions because Delta would add to the already complex US Airways mix of America West workers who have not been integrated into the new company or the seniority system. The US Airways offer for Delta also raises serious questions on how the merged company would handle pensions. Workers at US Airways gave up their defined-benefit pensions for 401(k) type plans the last time US Airways was in bankruptcy. At Delta, the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) froze their defined-benefit pension and replaced it with a 401(k) plan, but the nonunion employees maintained their defined-benefit plans and the company continues to fund them fully. In fact, bankrupt Delta has not taken advantage of the longer-term funding opportunities provided by the Pension Protection Act that passed last year and continues to pay into the plans at the higher rate.
Speculation about other airlines jumping into the bidding for Delta are surfacing, and some are looking at the possibility of Northwest Airlines drawing a suitor as merger talks swirl around the industry. Basically, the workers have given their hides to these companies, both in terms of labor and wage and benefit concessions, only to have them use the money for speculative acquisitions of bankrupt companies. Northwest Airlines is spending money the flight attendants gave them in concessions on new uniforms, angering Flight Attendants-CWA members over the extravagance.
Forty-five Machinists (IAM) members still will be able to honor a UAW picket line at Alcoa in Cleveland after reaching a four-year labor agreement over the weekend. The 850 UAW members went on strike last Monday.
Boeing and the IAM in Oak Ridge, Tenn., reached a tentative agreement that would raise pay 11 percent over three years.
Although the Middletown AK Steel lockout of 1,900 IAM members continues into its eighth month, AK Steel reached a tentative contract for United Steelworkers (USW) members in Mansfield, Ohio.
USW at the Cameco Corp. uranium mines in Saskatchewan accepted a contract offer that raises pay 21.5 percent over four years.
The USW slammed the feds for turning a blind eye to safety risks at Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tenn. The Steelworkers ended a five-month strike at the plant without getting a new agreement.
Nine hundred United American Nurses (UAN) members working without a contract since 2005 ratified a new contract with St Mary’s in Minnesota. Nurses at the Concord Hospital settled a new three-year contract for wage increases averaging between 18 percent and 32 percent. In West Virginia, West Virginia University hospital workers approved a new contract that raises wages by more than $2 between now and 2010. The medical school a Southern Illinois University reached a new contract with 600 AFSCME members and other health support workers.
The last city union to reach agreement, the Tulsa Labor & trades union, AFSCME, accepted a new contract that raises wages by 8 percent. Lebanon County, Pa., emergency dispatch workers and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers agreed to a five-year deal retroactive to January 2005 that boosts pay a hefty 25 percent over the five years. AFSCME city workers in Rockford, Ill., ratified a four-year deal that boosts pay 3.5 percent the first year.
Volvo Trucks announced they will layoff 1,000 UAW members at their Dublin, Va., manufacturing plant.
Helicopter pilots, members of OPEIU, on strike since Sept. 20 in the Gulf at PHI have made an offer to return to work and end their strike. The company recently rejected an offer to return to the bargaining table.
In Connecticut, Bridgeport firefighters rejected a contract proposal that would have raised pay by 2 percent retroactive to 2004 when the last contract expired.
Twelve thousand Washington State child care workers agreed on a first contract that will raise pay by 7 percent next year and 4 percent the year after.
IAM members in the Oak Ridge, Tenn., Boeing facility approved a contract, ending their strike. The bittersweet settlement calls for the elimination of 180 jobs at the plant.
Miller Brewing OPEIU members authorized a strike should they fail to get a new contract. The company is proposing to freeze workers’ pensions.
IATSE and the unaffiliated Teamsters have locked up representation for workers on America’s Top Model, essentially leaving the WGA in the cold in its efforts to organize the writers on the show.
Nonunion city workers in Littleton, Mass., have forced the city to back rights for nonunion town workers to equal treatment with union workers.
Maybe the tide is turning for airline workers. Delta and Northwest will invite workers back. Delta is bringing back 1,000 pilots and Northwest 225. A smaller carrier, Republic Airways, plans to hire more than 350 flight attendants. Another major carrier, United Airlines, announced plans to file an application for a Washington-to-Beijing route. The flight would be the first such direct route between the nations’ capitals.
One group hoping to recover past concessions is ALPA at Alaska Airlines who opened negotiations this week. ALPA members took a 34 percent cut in pay in 2005 when the company was in Chapter 11.
Alameda County Electrical Workers members and Contra Costa will get raises and keep their health care if they approve a tentative agreement expected to be announced today.
Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mullaly said that its concession axe will have to cut deeper into UAW givebacks if Ford is to increase its slim profit margins. Ford also said it will sell all it’s inherited Visteon plants by 2008.
Auto parts maker Dana Corporation says it will save $540 million by closing eight more plants and eliminate retiree health care. Dana is one of five major auto parts makers in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
UAW members at a Muncie, Ind., BorgWarner auto parts plant face concessions or possible plant closure. The company said it will consider buyouts.
Another manufacturing firm, Thomson Electronics, announced it will also cut health care coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees and shift more costs to pre-Medicare eligible retirees.
Qwest retirees, facing benefit caps imposed by the company, plans a campaign, including rallies, letters and a possible lawsuit to keep their benefits.
In San Diego, the city agreed to settle is 2002–2003 Securities and Exchange Commission pension fraud case. They got a slap on the wrist, agreeing to hire a monitor for three years but pay no fine.
The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint and agreed to hear a case against Kaiser Permanente security contractor Inter-Con Security Services that alleges it interfered with the security workers’ rights to organize.
You have to read this simple, three sentence editorial in the Chattanooga Times Free Press entitled “Public Employee Unions Not Needed”:
It is unfortunate that there is a movement in the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, approved by new Sheriff Billy Long, toward unionization of deputies. All public employees should be committed to serve all the public, and unionization of public employees is inappropriate. All public employees should be treated fairly and with due consideration in their employment, and there should be no hint of adversarial or coercive action that might adversely affect public affairs and services.
No why or wherefore, just a simple statement opposing public unions. Now read these stories about a bipartisan New Jersey panel recommendations for state worker reform to raise the retirement age, cap salaries, increase health care costs and reduce the pensions for state workers, and Rockford, Ill., raising the health-insurance costs for nonunion employees.
St. Paul economist Edward Lotterman argues that Medicare drug-cost bargaining is not sound economic policy, even though he admits it will lower costs to seniors.
Rather than accept a new contract with a local NBC affiliate, longtime Washington sportscaster George Michael says even though the contract would have paid him more than he ever dreamed, he will step down as sports anchor because NBC is laying off members of his staff. Michael said:
If I have to lay somebody off…I have to take the first bullet. It’s that simple.
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