GE

GE CONTRACT 2011 - REPORT # 25

The IUE-CWA LOCAL 201 FULL EXECUTIVE POLICY BOARD voted 13-0 today (Thursday, June 23) to recommend rejection of the national "tentative agreement" of the new GE Contract. The Policy Board will be putting out the reasons for the rejection recommendation by a leaflet in the shops tomorrow and it will also be up on this web site very soon. The reasons are consistent with the reasons our Business Agent Ric Casilli, cited in Report #23 on this web site, for his rejection vote in New York and is consistent with the reasoning of all 4 of Local 201 Conference Board delegates who voted rejection in New York also.

Our Full IUE-CWA GE Stewards Council will be given the full Contract Memorandum Of Understanding at the Council's meeting tomorrow for explanation and discussion of its good points as well as it's terrible points. The full Local 201 GE Stewards Council will then take a recommendation vote to refer to the Local 201 Membership who vote next Wed. June 29. There will be a Membership meeting next Tuesday, June 28 to review the entire Contract with members before they have to vote Wednesday, June 29.

Leaflet placed in the Local 201 Shops 

 3 HUGE TAKEAWAYS: VOTE NO!

Before this year’s contract negotiations, GE vowed to “re-set” the wage and benefit package for current and future GE workers. The unions promised to fight these attacks. Without any financial justification, given their profits, GE vowed to join the corporate party (they call it “trends”) by reducing the standard of living of GE workers.

The tentative agreement eliminates key benefits for current and/or future workers in essential areas across the board. Our negotiating committee can certainly argue that we raised the price of the strategic defeat, especially with benefits like the one-time SERO window, pension improvements and VRIPS for a few hundred workers nation-wide. One can only imagine what our wages and benefits would look like without a union.***

But the hated management health care plan is in place, although with cost softeners. Our best analysis says our costs will, on the average, DOUBLE. Future negotiations would be based on the management plan template, with its multiple options pitting the young and healthy versus the older or the ill or the unlucky. Our plan of shared risk is gone.

SERO (Special Early Retirement Option) as we knew it is gone. A SERO without pension supplements or company paid health care is worthless. Without the option of a senior member taking early retirement to save the job of a less senior member, job security for younger members is gone. And the financial deterrent to GE for lay-offs from farmout and outsourcing is gone.

The defined benefit pension plan is gone for new hires. They’ll be entirely dependent on an “enhanced” 401(k) for their retirement. Remember, a trillion dollars of stock value was lost in a few days due to financial swindles in the current crisis. (Of course, GE found $4.4 billion in recent years to pad the special pension for the top earning 3200 GE management employees. No “re-set” for the beautiful people!) Older workers among us will keep pensions for a few more years, but its gone today for new hires and will be gone tomorrow for everyone. Will GE workers whose pensions have been given away fight for the pensions of the people who gave them away? Also gone for new hires is post-65 health insurance, pension supplements, disability pension, Personal Pension Accounts and Voluntary Pension Accounts. They’ll pay 50% of pre-65 insurance costs.

The $5000 bonus is good eye candy—but hurts you every year after the year you get it since it does not go into your base pay and get repeated each year in the future, like a percentage raise does. After one year, your bonus is gone.

While there are a number of positive features in the tentative agreement that sweeten the deal (regarding time-off, etc.) there is simply no arguing with the above facts. Our health care plan, future pensions, and job security (SERO): GONE.

WE HAVE TO MEAN WHAT WE SAY!

The takeaways in the tentative agreement are not simply part of a give and take—they fundamentally roll back bedrock elements of our contract. They must be rejected.

Some of course will say, like the management who are working the shop floor, just “go with the flow”. Don’t stand out. That is not our way. We have said from the beginning that we would fight the kind of takeaways that are in this agreement. We could not have been more clear.

We engage in serious, honest negotiations. We do not bluster or posture. There will be other negotiations in the future. If we are to maintain our credibility in the future with our members, other union members, and the company, WE HAVE TO SAY WHAT WE MEAN AND MEAN WHAT WE SAY. We urge you to back our Business Agent and local Executive Board, and VOTE NO!

IUE-CWA Local 201 Executive Policy Board (unanimous!)

Jeff Crosby, President; Ric Casilli, Business Agent; Alex Brown, Vice-President; Mike Reidy, Treasurer; Jeff Francis, Gary Poland, Skip Brown, Bill Rounseville, Fred Russell, Ex. Bd.; Ted Comick, H&S Director, Jerry Ayer, Tom O’Shea, Pat Ryan, Trustees; Bill Ryan, Sergeant at Arms