I want to start off by giving a brief update on the 14 state sale from Verizon to Frontier. It looks like every state except Illinois and West Virginia has gone pretty smoothly. Illinois is still a lock to be approved and the big fight still remains in West Virginia. Verizon and Frontier are trying to bargain with the IBEW and the CWA to make the transition a little smoother. I will continue to report on any progress as we find out.
Surplus and bumping – we are still in the process of bumping from the announced 4th quarter surplus, I believe we are in the 5th round of bumping now. The only surplus we have been notified of for the 1st quarter of 2010 involves the closing of another Verizon Plus store in Tampa. All of the Retail Sales Clerks will be moved, by seniority, to other stores located in Tampa. The General Clerk title in Tampa has been offered the ISP. We will make sure that any bumping that occurs from this offer is properly conducted by our Collective Bargaining Agreement. FIOS orders in Tampa and Southern are still keeping the FNFT’s working overtime, and as I said last month, this is a good thing for many classifications, and as long as it continues we’re hopeful Florida will stay quiet when talks of surplus arise across the country. I will report more on this over the next couple of months.
The implementation of the joint union-company overtime committee seems to be working so far. I know it is only the first week of February, and I’m sure we are going to have some issues over the next month or two, but we will work on those to continue to have an overtime roster that is maintained as our contract states. Like I said last month, if we can ensure the overtime rosters are properly and contractually maintained and posted, it will be the first time that has happened since I began working for GTE in 1985. We are hopeful this works and then we will begin to make sure rosters within the Inside Plant world have this plan incorporated as well.
The Safety Policy changes that the Company wants to implement for 2010 are still being worked on. We have met with the Company on 2 occasions so far and the discussions have been mainly about the Union and Company working together to ensure that all employees work safely. This means that all employees are properly notified of safety policies on a monthly basis. We used to have monthly safety meetings, which lasted about 10 minutes, where a supervisor would go over whatever safety topic was chosen for that month. We advised the Company that the union feels safety has been on the back burner and they have been very reactive to safety issues instead of proactive. For several years now, employees are not receiving valuable safety information until after an employee had been hurt or injured. The bottom line is the IBEW will always promote safety within the membership and will participate in communicating safety to the members. We will be meeting again about the safety policy and I will report on this again next month.
We had a meeting here at the Hall this week with Anthony Corteese, the Workers’ Comp attorney we refer our members to when they get injured on the job and we’re happy to report that our members are being taken care of promptly. As Tony stated, it is imperative that a member contact him immediately after they have been injured on the job. The staff at the Union Hall, and the Chief Stewards has been instrumental in making sure our members know what to do in the event they are injured on the job.
There have been several contractual issues within the BZT classification over the last couple of years and it looks like a big one has been resolved. Due to what the Company said was a lack of manpower, they were utilizing management employees to do the staging work, which had always been performed by the BZT’s. After meeting with the Company, this work will be performed by the BZT’s. Of course, we need to remain vigilant to ensure that our members are always performing this work. Another meeting will take place shortly to discuss how the Company is moving work from one classification to another.
As far as the outstanding grievances and arbitrations, we currently have 3 arbitrations scheduled and this week requested a panel for the 4th arbitration for this year. We should be getting our 1st 2009 termination requested for arbitration before summer. As I stated last month, our goal is to be within 12-14 months from the day of termination to the day of the arbitration hearing and we are moving very well in that direction. Next week the staff here at the hall will be going through grievance reviews on the outstanding contractual issues, dating back to 2002. We do not see any language arbitrations being scheduled until after we complete bargaining this summer.
Everyone knows what happened last year with Christmas Eve. Some work groups were allowed to take a ½ day off, but most work groups were not afforded the same opportunity. This has happened for several years, and after being notified by the Company they would not let every employee have the same benefit, we filed an Unfair Labor Practice with the NLRB. We feel that this benefit should be offered to every employee or to no employee. This benefit should be bargained for every member and that is our goal. As this issue progresses, we will report to the membership.
Your Bargaining Committee met last month and the main focus was to get a survey completed and sent to the membership. The survey was mailed to every members’ home and it is also on our website, where you can fill it out online and submit it to the committee so you don’t have to waste a stamp. Your committee will meet again on the 16th to begin reading and reviewing your concerns and suggestions in order to formulate proposals. If you have not done so yet, please get your surveys returned and encourage your brothers and sisters to do the same.
Finally, I want to thank, once again, every member that came out last Sunday to our Solidarity Family Fun Day here at the Union Hall. We had approximately 350 members and their families attend and the event was very well received. It was an excellent way to kick off our Bargaining year and we need to continue to build our unity in the months ahead. I thanked the Solidarity Committee last month and I want to thank them again. They are responsible for putting everything together. I also want to thank Bobby Bellot, Jeff Lane, Scott Craddock, Noah Kaaa and Bob Dixon for getting here between 3 and 5 am to begin cooking all the great food we had. The Solidarity Committee will be getting together again soon to plan some more events throughout our operating area.
As we get closer to meeting with Verizon to negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, we need every member to work safely and remember to do a quality UNION job everyday.
In Solidarity,
Robert
