MEETING OUR CHALLENGES WITH WORKER-LED INITIATIVES
By Tom Dalzell, Business Manager
What happened to the lazy, carefree summer days? On many fronts, things are buzzing at Local 1245. Any thought of a peaceful summer long ago flew out the window as we face a number of major challenges.
NV Energy is the greatest challenge at the moment. A record high percentage of our members voted in the recent ratification and by a greater than 90% margin rejected the company’s offer. If the company is in a listening mode, the message of our members is loud and clear. The company is doing well. Profits are healthy. Executive compensation is healthier. There is no good reason (and I don’t count corporate greed as a good reason) to treat our members the way the new management at NV Energy is treating them. We should know by early July whether the company is interested in a win-win solution to the issues on the table. If so, great. If not, we’ll do what we have to do to be the winner, not the loser.
At PG&E, we have three big issues in play. On June 11, we exchanged bargaining proposals with the company for a new Clerical contact. The union proposed modest improvements in the contract, while the company made two radical proposals that would gut the contract. First, the company proposed a two-tier wage system, under the terms of which employees hired after Jan. 1, 2011 would be paid less–about $20,000 a year less–than existing employees. In fact, some of the wages proposed by the company are so low that new employees would qualify for lower utility rates, MediCal, welfare, and their wages would violate local Living Wage statues–hardly an embodiment of PG&E’s professed values. Don’t worry, the company is telling our members, we will protect you, it’s just the new hires we will hammer. Anybody who has been around two-tier systems knows how divisive they are and how they eventually have the effect of pulling the top tier down to the bottom tier. If the company thinks that you are worth less than you are being paid, it is only a matter of time before they hammer you too.
Employing the same doublespeak, the company has proposed substantial contacting out of Clerical work, telling our members that the purpose for this is not to get the work done for $15 an hour–no, not at all–but to save our members from having to work mandatory overtime. Look chutzpah up in the dictionary and you will see a picture of this proposal. While making a proposal that would undoubtedly spell the beginning of the end for decent wages for PG&E’s Clerical workers, the company is claiming that the proposal is in fact for the workers’ own good: it will let them spend more time with their families. What gall!
The second big issue in play is the Tuesday-through-Saturday work schedule for PG&E line crews. The contract permits these crews under certain circumstances, but in the past the company has used these crews judiciously, recognizing the work-family balance. In fact, the company had only one crew in its entire system before June 15, when it suddenly decided that judicious was for cowards and it implemented Saturday crews in more than a dozen headquarters. At a time when there are fewer linemen working for the company than there have been for 40 years, when the backlog of Equipment Requiring Repair is higher than it ever has been, and when the backlog for replacing poles is higher than it ever has been, the company has launched a number of initiatives to squeeze more out of fewer crews. This is an issue that will be addressed in the grievance procedure, but it is a pretty clear signal that the company does not intend to increase staffing unless it is told by the California PUC to do so.
Finally at PG&E, System Operators continue to vote with their feet, choosing almost any option other than accepting a job at the Grid Control Center in Vacaville when their control centers are closed. It should come as no surprise that the jobs in Vacaville are going unfilled–who wants to try to sell their house now, move their family hundreds of miles, go to work in a center which has yet to deliver on the promises of technology made when it opened a year ago, and then be expected to acquire expertise on 15 new jurisdictions for the same pay received for knowing one jurisdiction? We are working with PG&E on their critical inability to attract qualified workers to the jobs in Vacaville, but to date our suggestions have fallen on deaf ears.
At the City of Redding, we are seeing amateur anti-work politics at its worst. At a time when cities are financially challenged, a majority of the City Council in Redding has decided to sponsor two ballot measures–at a cost of over $50,000 to the city–to determine what the city’s opening position should be in upcoming negotiations with Local 1245 and other unions that represent city workers. The ballot measures would have no force or effect, just “guide” the city in formulating its position. Of course the ballot measures are anti-worker, but if the city wants to take this position why not just take it? Why spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars just to come up with a bargaining proposal? We are fighting back as we have in the past, and City Council elections in Redding this fall will give us the chance to try to moderate the amateur radical group now on the council.
Even as we are fighting these fights started by others, we are moving forward with a number of worker-led initiatives:
- Our lineman peer-to-peer safety program is nearly ready to roll out.
- Our PG&E customer service representative attendance excellence peer-to-peer group is meeting in early July to train for implementation of the first step in their program.
- Nine young members of Local 1245 recently returned from the AFL-CIO Youth Summit in Washington D.C. and have met several times to plan steps to bring Local 1245’s 6,000 members under the age of 40 into a greater role with Local 1245.
Between the wars started by others, the daily business of negotiating contracts and policing the contract, and our peer-to-peer initiatives, these are busy times at Local 1245. Our members, as always, will be our greatest strength as we step forward to meet these challenges.
