Business Manager Reports

First, I want to inform everyone that the Jeop Desk in Tampa is going to remain in Tampa.  We were notified recently that the work being performed in our Jeop desk is going to stay here instead of going to Texas.  John and I met with the manager of the Jeop desks and we will meet again soon to decide whether there will be separate work groups or continue to rotate employees in and out every 180 days as in the past.  We did find out that the Dispatch Clerks in the Jeop desk were made a permanent work group in 2008.  The Company wants to add NT’s from the FSC to the Jeop desk and continue to have employees from the CSSC, BSC, and FNFT classifications work in our Jeop desk.  This is good news for us to be able to keep these job functions in Florida.  As we get more information on how the Jeop desk will be structured, we will post on the website. 

During Bargaining, we all know how much the Company wanted the CSSC employees to be forced to go to a mandatory comp plan.  That did not happen during bargaining so now what they are going to implement is a 90/10 plan.  It’s the same thing they did in California earlier this year.  What this does, is take the CSSC employees off of the Perk points and Team Performance Plan they currently receive and move them to a 90/10 sales plan with the capability to earn $5400 per year instead.  Now, this is not like the mandatory comp plan that over half the employees are under.  The employees that did not move to the mandatory comp plan will not see their hourly wage reduced. Their hourly wage does not get disturbed and that is the main point.  The Company plans on starting this plan in October.

During bargaining, we tried to alter our grievance procedure so that we can ensure a more timely process from start to finish.  The Company was not on the same page as we were and in the end our committee notified the Company that we have time limits in our grievance procedure and that we will do whatever we have to do for the Company to live up to those guidelines.  Since bargaining has ended, we have settled quite a few outstanding grievances and the Reps are working with Labor to clear up more of the backlog.  Our next arbitration is set for September 21^st and we recently requested a panel for our next one in October.  We are going to continue to schedule these termination arbitrations until we get caught up.

Now, for the ISP offering that was made today…the Company advised us of the classifications and the number of employees that would be allowed to go from those classifications.  The total amount of employees they are looking to accept the offer is 275.  I want to stress that out of the 275 NOT ONE is involuntary!  With numbers almost reaching 300, to not have even one member have to worry about bumping or being laid off is huge.  For some of our members, I understand you are ready to retire and are looking for an enhancement to leave.  The goal of this union has been to do whatever we can to greatly reduce or eliminate totally the number of force adjustments and layoffs.  At least for this surplus, we are in good shape.  Now, every employee, whether in a declared surplus classification or not, will receive a package in the mail.  Of course, if you are in a declared surplus classification, and have the seniority, you will be allowed to accept and leave the Company.  If you are NOT in a declared surplus classification, you will have 14 calendar days to irrevocably volunteer to separate your employment and receive the benefits of the incentive package.  At the conclusion of this 14 calendar day election period, the Union and Company will meet and discuss, for no more than 30 calendar days regarding which, if any, non-surplus employees will be allowed to accept and leave.  So, if any employee is sure that they want to leave the Company, they must turn in their forms as outlined in the packets they will receive in the mail.  So everyone understands what this incentive includes, I will state what is included in this one-time bonus:

$1100 per year, up to 40 years of service. (Language in our CBA states up to 30 years.) Also, you will receive $750 per year up to 5 years, which totals $3750.

A Voluntary Termination Bonus of $50,000 and if an employee is not eligible to retire, which means you do not have 30 years with the Company or 76 points, you will then be eligible for 6 months continuation of medical coverage.  If you are eligible to retire, then of course you will have your retiree health care coverage as defined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.  In addition, if you do not have 30 years of service, the penalty will be waived for early commencement applied to the calculation of your pension.

The Staff and Officers of Local 824 wish every member a Safe and Happy Holiday weekend.

Robert

I have a meeting next week with Jeanmarie and her staff that is in charge of placing discounts for Verizon services, and as I reported last month, I believe Verizon will be offering Union member discounts for FIOS and HSI shortly.  It probably will not be a huge savings, but will offer all union members a discount on their communication services.  When this discount gets final approval, our Local will be doing a mail-out to all the Unions that make up our Central Labor Council.  We want every union member in our jurisdiction, IBEW or otherwise, to know that by supporting Verizon, they are supporting their Union sisters and brothers.

We are in the process of finding out exactly what job duties our Jeop desk members are performing.  Over the last year and a half, more functions are being performed, including dispatch work, CSSC work, BSC work, FSC work, and a few others.  Originally, the Jeop desk was a place where members went to help out when they were injured on the job.  Kind of like a light duty position.  Since last November, we keep hearing that the Jeop desk may go away, probably to Texas, and we do not want that to happen.  If the Company wants to utilize different employees from different classifications in the Jeop desk, we can work that out and perhaps create a new work group.  We have another meeting next week and we will report further once we know what the plans are.

Now, I want to provide some information on how so many members received their ballots back, stating return to sender.  The renewal slip for our post office box has not been sent to the hall, but rather just placed in the box itself.  Payment was received by the post office prior to the ballots being mailed out, but the St. Pete processing center, which seems to sort almost everyone’s mail now, wasn’t notified of the payment so therefore started returning mail with information saying our post office box wasn’t valid.  Bobby Bellot, the Election Judge spoke with the Postmaster and everything was supposed to be ok, but it seems like it took 48 hours for the issue to finally get resolved.  Bobby will check our post office box on a quarterly basis from here on out, so we should not run into this issue again.

As everyone probably knows already, we conducted meetings all last week, including one last Friday morning for any member that works a later shift, to discuss the Tentative Agreement.  I will go through the items that are new or have changed again this evening, so that everyone is clear and understands the issues that are being voted on.  Your Bargaining Committee is here tonight and will be glad to answer any questions you may have after the meeting has concluded.  I will, as I always do, stay until all questions are answered as well.

A few members have asked why did we reach agreement before the expiration of the current agreement.  In 1993, we reached agreement at or before the expiration and in 2002, if you can remember, we reached agreement long before the expiration.  We believe there was much to risk, from both sides, to not come up with a fair agreement before the expiration.  Larger issues from the Company, like the B is a B letter and Mandatory Comp for the CSSC and employee contributions for medical coverage, also issues the Union had on the table, like decreasing the hours to reach double-time or increasing night differential or increasing Holidays were not going to be attainable by either side.  To reach a fair agreement, the Company didn’t press their issues and neither did the Union.  Your Committee believes this is a fair agreement and is asking for your support.

Now, before I begin going through the changes, I want to point out that we have had a couple members request a copy of the tentative agreement or for us to place the tentative agreement on the internet.  The committee had copies at all the meetings we held last week, and they were available to view at that time.  There are several copies here tonight, if you would like to read through them.  We have never mailed out copies of a tentative agreement before and are under no obligation to incur the cost to our members that we would if we mailed them out.

Ok, so let’s go through the handouts that you picked up on the way in tonight.  New-Hire Orientation was an MOA in the current CBA and now it is being moved to language and will reside in Article II, Section 1, paragraph 1.5.1.  Same page, at the bottom talks about the changes for Union Officer excusals and the amount of days they can be excused. Next page should show the increase of per diem from $35 to $37.50.  The bottom of that page shows the meal allowance changing from $6 to $7.25

Next page shows the clarification in our bereavement language.  We have had questions on this forever and hopefully this will clear it up for every member.  Basically, it says the same thing it always has, but clarifies that a relative not described in the first paragraph MUST live in the same establishment as you for you to receive benefits.  At the bottom of that page, it included Verizon Enterprise Delivery, formerly Verizon Select Services, for the bump in per diem to $37.50 per day, just like the Core Agreement.

The next page is the MOA on vacation banking.  This shows that banking will be discontinued effective January 1, 2011, but any weeks currently banked will not be lost and will stay in the bank for you to use in the future or keep until you retire.  Those are the changes to the contract language and now I will go through the information that we provided at the meetings last week.

We will be voting on a new 3-year agreement that will run from August 1, 2010 through July 27, 2013.  Our Dental Plan benefits will not change, but there will be a cost for family coverage.  Currently the Company pays 100% of the premium for employee + family and with the change, the Company will pay 100% for employee and 80% for family.  Frank Franzen did the research and the cost for family coverage will be approximately $13 per month.  Now, about 10 years ago, we were able to join a Union Dental program that cut our costs for dental work more than half.  We currently only have one dentist left, and he is in Tampa.  Danny Alfonso and I are again trying to get more dentists back into this program and will have a meeting soon to discuss our options.  What the administrators are asking us to do is find out how many members are interested, so they can actively pursue more dentists.  If you are interested, you can go to our website and choose Member Resources/Forms on the left menu and click on the Union Dental link.  Once you do that, you will see a short list of the costs for us to have certain dental procedures done.  Again, if that interests you, please contact your Rep at the Hall so we can give this info to the Union Dental Company and hopefully that will get us more dentists, in all of our areas.  By participating in this dental program, you will more than make up the $13 or so a month your family coverage would cost.  This program is a UNION MEMBER ONLY benefit and you must show an IBEW 824 membership card to get these benefits.  Again, this is a UNION Member benefit and not a benefit provided for by Verizon.  To be eligible for these discounts, you must choose Verizon Dental (Metlife Dental) and not the DMO provided by Verizon, when you make your benefits selections later this year.

Next we’ll talk about upgrades.  The NDC and the Expedite Group in Temple Terrace will both be upgraded.  The NDC Dispatch Clerks are going from D to C-1.  They will be merging with the CPE Dispatch Clerks on 301 and they now reside at the Westside location in Tampa.  The employees in the Expedite Group were and have been performing the job duties that Dispatch Clerks perform and so they were moved from Wage Schedule F to D.

The Lead Rep MOA in the current CBA was altered to include only the following classifications – CSSC, SRC, and FSC.  The only change was to include the FSC.  Next, the Business Attire MOA will include ALL customer-facing employees and they will be eligible for the $240 first-year allowance and $180 allowance each year thereafter. (The Cable Splicer classification is NOT included for this MOA.)

The Common Control Scheduling MOA was altered to include the FSC.  No other changes to that MOA. 

A Contractor Committee MOA, which is new for us, will be added to the CBA.  This MOA states that the Union and Company will meet biannually, or immediately after a surplus has been declared, for the purpose of discussing and locating contractors that are performing our work.  This is a big issue for the Union and will help us with the knowledge of where contractors are and what work they are performing.

Domestic Partner Benefits changed to include FML entitlement for the care of a seriously ill domestic partner.  That was the only change to that MOA.  Long-Term Care is another new benefit that we do not have now.  This will benefit members who have a family member in a nursing home or has a family member taken care of in their home.  This will be a benefit that you will decide if you need it or not when you select the rest of your benefits on an annual basis.  There will be a cost, based on what you choose, just like LTD or Life Insurance.  Long-Term Disability coverage will increase from 12 months to 18 months.

Pension Plan – Pension Minimums, located in your current CBA on page 149 were increased on the low end from $300 to the high end of $800.  These are the caps and apply to members that begin their service with Verizon later in life and will not reach 30 years with the Company.  The Point of Service Medical Plan, although there is no premiums contribution from the employees, does have 2 changes.  Currently there is no out-of-network coverage for Substance Abuse or Mental Health.  Now, there will be at the rate of 70/30.  Those are the only changes to our medical benefits!  The VEBA benefits, which are our Retiree Healthcare benefits, will change for new or rehires, effective with this agreement.  Any new or rehire, upon 30 years of service, will receive $345 per year, up to 30 years of service.  No changes for current employees.

The Verizon Business Transition is a big change for our local.  I will start by telling you that we had a proposal to bring this work plus the employees into the bargaining agreement.  After many days talking about this work, the only way the Company would agree to bring this work union, was to have those employees bring their seniority with them and protect them from a force adjustment or layoff for a period of 18 months.  That was the bottom line to acquiring this work.  Now, Verizon Business has been taking our work for several years, with the Company’s knowledge.  The dilemma your committee had was do we say no to bringing this work in under these conditions, and continue to lose our work, or do we make this part of the package and let the members decide?  If we say NO, more work will disappear, and with that more jobs.  Every member that the Committee or I have talked to over the last week agree that we need this work in our bargaining agreement.  No one likes the way it is coming in, but the alternative is worse.  As we have said all week, this is a very important issue and it needed to be brought out to the membership, explained, and let the members decide for themselves.  That is what we have done and you will decide by your vote.  I will say that this involves 75 employees falling under the bargaining agreement, and those employees are already contacting the hall to join our local.  There are 23 employees located in our franchise area and the rest are scattered around the state.  We will be having new-hire orientation meetings with these employees, if this agreement is ratified.

The transition of the Video Head-End work coming into the bargaining agreement came with the same caveats, seniority and protection.  Again, this is not the way we wanted this work, but it is for the members to decide, not the committee.  This group consists of approximately 12 employees.

The Team Performance Award, or TPA is unchanged and will continue at the 4% maximum. The last item, I believe, is the Voluntary Termination Bonus, which consist of a $10,000 bonus if you are offered, accept and leave the Company under an ISP offer.  This will be in the agreement and is not a one-time offer.

Now, for what some of you have been waiting for, I will talk about the one-time ISP offer that will be offered after the ratification of this agreement.  The reason it won’t be offered unless the agreement is ratified is because the Company has stated that they will not declare a surplus while we are in bargaining.  If the contract is not ratified, we would have to go back to the table and any offer would be delayed.  The Company informed me for several months, that we would only receive an offer when a surplus was declared.  We believe a surplus will be declared shortly after ratification.  The offer will be the same as it was in Texas, which gives a one-time supplement of $40,000, in addition to the $10,000 Bonus that I spoke of a few minutes ago, to total $50,000 plus the $1100 per year up to 30 years we currently have in our ISP will be increased to cap at 40 years.  That equates to an additional $61,000 for a member to leave the Company.  In addition, if a member, who is not pension eligible by having 30 years or 76 points, elects to leave they will have their medical benefits continue to be paid by the Company for a period of 6 months.  Also, the pension plan will be amended such that being under the age of 55 will not penalize Service Pension eligible employees who leave.  Currently, if you do not have 30 years of service, but have 76 points, you would be penalized 3% each year, under 30 years of service.  This will not apply under this one-time offer.

Thank you for your attention and have a great weekend.

In Solidarity,

Robert

 There are a couple of items that I want to mention before we begin talking about bargaining. 

Danny Alfonso and I have been reviewing termination grievances and have held several Pre-Arbs to determine if those cases will be heard in arbitration.  The Arbitration that we had scheduled for June 11^th was resolved when the Company made a financial offer and the grievant accepted.  We have a date for September for another termination grievance already and we will continue to schedule terminations until we are caught up.

The Solidarity Day at the Trop, which was the day before we opened bargaining, was a success, with close to 200 members and their families attending.  Zaida Menendez and Grace Smith are looking for volunteers to participate in a cancer walk that will take place in October and hopefully one of them will talk a little more about it under Good of the Union.

Now, let’s talk about bargaining.  As you know, we met last Monday, the 28^th and basically both Committees traded proposals and then briefly discussed them.  During the 1^st 9 days, we probably met in full Committee for less than 3 hours.  This is not unusual in the beginning of the bargaining process.  There have been several sub-committee meetings during the first 2 weeks regarding Common Control Scheduling and the Grievance Procedure.  We updated the website with the progress that was made over those 9 days, which was not a whole lot.  Now, as Dawn Livingston reminded me, in regards to those emails, we have some members that do not know what MOA or LOU means.  MOA is a Memorandum of Agreement and LOU is a Letter of Understanding.  There are 81 MOA’s and LOU’s currently in our Collective Bargaining Agreement.  I’m going to go over what MOA’s and LOU’s your Committee has agreed to renew up to this point.

All MOA’s or LOU’s have been tentatively agreed upon to renew, with the exception of the following:  Lead Rep, Force Adjustment, Dental Plan (which the Company has proposed a new MOA,) Mail Order Prescription Plan (which the Company has proposed a new MOA,) Point of Service, which details our Healthcare benefits – the Company has proposed a new MOA as well, but without any cost to the employee.  Every Bargaining Session within the former GTE areas in the last 18 months, the Union was presented with a proposal to have the employee contribute to their medical benefits.  This did not happen here.  From initial review of this proposal last night, the changes are to the Mental Health coverage and it does not look like a decrease in benefits for the members.  The Joint Healthcare Committee has not been renewed to this point either.  The last 3 that have NOT been renewed as of yet include Common Control Scheduling, Professional Image and Business Attire.

Now, the Union currently has proposals that include:  increasing night differential; increasing per diem; increasing meal allowances; more flexibility for the employees to use discretionary vacation days/floaters; clarification on the process to choose floaters after vacation selection has ended (and I would like to add a thank you to all the Chiefs that were contacted by your committee last week for the information on how each group bids or selects Floating Holidays.  As you can probably imagine, the process is not consistent across Florida); Holidays; clarification on bereavement language; bumping; temporary assignments/180 days; grievance procedure; upgrades; contractor committee; vision plan (which the Company has a counter and our committee is still reviewing); guidelines for out of state assignments; long-term care (which the Company has a counter and our committee is still reviewing.)  Now with a couple of these issues, I stated that our committee is still reviewing, and that is because we were given what we hope are the final 11 proposals from the Company late yesterday afternoon.

Now, what the Company has on the table is as follows:

Lead Rep, to basically allow any group that wants to utilize Lead Rep to do so; they would like to modify the Force Adjustment – CZT II and Cable Splicer, more affectionately referred to as the B is a B letter; change the way vacation is gained from earned as it is now, to an accrual system; to include CZT II’s and BZT’s and even COEI in the Business Attire MOA, to wear Verizon branded shirts; have all employees in the CSSC work under the Comp system; increase LTD from 12 to 18 months; end vacation banking, beginning in January 2011 (currently there are 254 employees who utilize vacation banking); reduce the Company contribution for all new or rehires for Retiree Medical Benefits (unfortunately, as I reported in January, we are the last Verizon property, including the East, that has not reduced this benefit.)

So, as you can see, there are some BIG sticking points for us with some of the Company’s proposals.  Based on the surveys that the members provided, we are looking to keep the benefits that we currently have, continue with our Lump Sum and Pension benefits and get a fair general wage increase.  We would like to begin to resolve our grievance procedure because we all know our process is broken.  It has been broken for years and something has to be done to ensure our members and management that we when file a grievance, there is a real issue that needs to be addressed.  We cannot continue to have 1500-2000 grievances filed each year.

Also, there have been some preliminary discussions about an enhanced ISP offer. We believe that if or when the Company declares a surplus, there will be an offer made that is consistent with the offer made to Texas last month when a surplus was declared there.  We don’t believe that a surplus will be announced in Florida before September, which is a very good thing for employees that may be affected even though I know there are a few members waiting for an offer so they can retire.  We are not aware of what classifications may be affected by a surplus or how many employees could be affected.  We will do everything we can to ensure that ALL employees are offered an Incentive and then do all we can to have management actually allow employees in areas that are not affected be allowed to accept as well.

We need to continue to show solidarity among the membership by wearing red on Thursday and black on Friday.  I’m sure as we progress through this process, if things do not go smoothly, we will be calling on all members for assistance.  Remember, this is your contract; this is your Union!

In Solidarity,

Robert

I will start off this report with the last report on the Verizon/Frontier sale.  You may already know, but during the last month West Virginia signed off, and shortly thereafter the FCC gave their approval as well.  The Company is reporting a cutover date of July 1^st, and we do not see any reason that the sale will not be completed on that date.

As for the sale being complete on July 1^st, we were able to contact quite a few of the laid off FNFT’s from last year to inform them of the multiple openings in the Frontier states, and from what I understand, several have taken positions already.  We were able to let the laid off technicians take priority over other employees, even from other Verizon states.

The next issue we are trying to bring to a conclusion is an enhanced incentive to be offered to employees in Verizon Southwest, which includes Florida.  I reported last month that we should have a meeting around the end of May or by the end of the first week of June.  Tim Smith, who was the Vice-President for Florida found out he was being reassigned to Delaware and his replacement, Jeanmarie Milla reported to Florida this week.  I met with Jeanmarie yesterday morning and we discussed several issues, one of which is an enhanced incentive for Florida.  She told me that she knew there had been discussions on this issue, but wasn’t current of the status.  We believe the delay in having this meeting is because of the management restructure that just took place.  Late yesterday afternoon, Jeanmarie called to inform me that it looks like the Company will be ready to discuss an enhanced incentive in about 2 weeks.  She also told me that the talks would include all of Verizon West, Florida, Texas and California.  Last night I spoke with the CWA President in Texas and the CWA Vice-President in California to ask them to call their new area Presidents to see what they are being told.  Texas called me back and told me that he was told the same information.  I know there are a couple of members out there that are anxiously awaiting this meeting because they are ready to retire.  I have been pushing for this meeting, as I stated last month, since late January.  Our focus for this meeting is to try to make room for members that could be affected negatively in regards to a force reduction, by allowing members that want to retire get some extra money or benefits.  This is still our main focus.  I have heard several rumors again in the past few days that the Union, or rather me, denied the Company to offer any incentive for a couple different reasons.  I don’t know where these rumors start, but I can assure you, whatever we can do to lessen the chances of any member being force adjusted or laid off, we are going to do.  The positive part of this meeting being delayed, for whatever reason it has been delayed, is that we will not have any announced surplus until the meeting occurs.  This is good news for any member that works in a classification that may be affected by a force reduction.

Even though we did not have any arbitrations scheduled for a hearing in the month of May, we were very busy with Pre-Arbs and post hearing work, like getting briefs ready following the last arbitration.  Our next arbitration is next Friday, June 11^th, and then we will take a break from arbitrations during the month of July, because of negotiations, but will resume again in August.  We should have a confirmed date for our August arbitration shortly.  Trying to get caught up on 3^rd step grievance meetings is a lot harder due to so many outstanding grievances.  We will continue to get as many scheduled in a timely manner as we possibly can throughout the rest of the year.

The Stress Committee, which consists of management and union members will be at the EAX building on June 16^th from 7:30-1.  They will have information regarding VZ Life and all the benefits that members have through this benefit.  We will let you know what location they go to next as soon as we know.

Approximately 2 weeks ago, we were finally able to get the flier out to the membership for the Solidarity Day at the Trop, which is on Sunday, June 27^th.  The game starts at 1:40, I believe and remember the Solidarity Day is 1 day before we begin bargaining with Verizon on our new contract.  You can download a copy of the flier from our website and the flier has all the information for you to purchase your tickets.  We hope to see as many members as possible attend the game.

Jody Irish, who is taken the lead on our Adopt-A-Road project is still looking for some more volunteers.  Information was put on our website last month and if you have any questions or want to volunteer, please call your Rep at the hall.

The new steward training, conducted by the International that was originally scheduled earlier this year has been scheduled again for Friday, August 27^th.  If you were scheduled for the earlier class, you will be notified shortly to make sure you are available on the new date.

From now until November, there will be plenty of political functions within our area if you are interested and would like to become more involved in local politics. I would like to encourage any member to at least check out what our COPE Committee does and how decisions are made regarding who Labor should endorse in races within our operating areas.

We will have a Chief Stewards and Officers meeting on Thursday, June 24^th, beginning at 9 a.m.  Our Negotiating Committee will be there as well so we can discuss the issues that will be brought up during bargaining.

I reported last month that we would begin negotiations on June 28^th, and now I will report that bargaining will take place at the Crown Plaza, located at MLK and I-75.  Our next scheduled General Meeting is July 2^nd, but as you will hear from the Executive Board report, the July meeting has been moved to the second Friday, which is the 9^th.  At that meeting, we will discuss the proposals from the Company and the Union.  Also, there will be a Bargaining Report Update on our website daily.  If there is any news to report, we will report on the site.  If there is no news to report, we will state that as well.  As you hear rumors, and there will be rumors out there, please check our website before passing the rumor around to your sisters and brothers.

In Solidarity,

Robert

It seems like I have started off every meeting with a report on a surplus or bumping.  Fortunately, we did not have an announced 2^nd quarter surplus as of tonight; However, I do want to report that in addition to the Company recalling the Pubcom employees last month, we had another recall last week.  A member that was force adjusted from the Cut Section to the APC was put back as a Cut Assignor.

I know everyone is aware of the enhanced incentive bargained between Verizon East and the Unions in the Northeast a couple of weeks ago.  In the Northeast, Verizon is looking to reduce headcount by 12,000 employees.  In several of those states, Verizon cannot lay off many more members due to a Job Security Agreement; therefore there was a big incentive for the Company to reach an agreement with those unions.  The proposed numbers for Verizon West are tremendously lower, and I’m glad about that.  I started talking to the Company locally in the latter part of January, specifically to talk about a possible incentive for employees in Florida.  The answer at that time was, they were going to wait to see if an agreement could be reached in the Northeast first.  Several months went by, and I continued to pursue a meeting regarding an incentive.  If you didn’t keep up with the bargaining in the Northeast, it was reported earlier in April that an agreement could not be reached and the Company would move forward with the reductions.  With the help of the IBEW Telecommunications department, we started having conversations with Labor Relations up north to begin discussing the possibility of an incentive in Florida.  We had an initial meeting a week and a half ago and as it stands right now, we will not be discussing an incentive until the end of May or beginning of June.  Even though we have heard numerous rumors that an agreement between us and the Company had already been reached AND rumors that I had actually rejected an offer from the Company, the positive side of this is, the 2^nd quarter surplus for Florida has been delayed until we do meet and discuss options for an incentive.  I want to remind everyone, that whatever happens when we have these discussions, the information will be relayed to the Chiefs and posted on the website as soon as possible.  If you hear a rumor, please check the site – if it is not there, then it hasn’t happened.

I had several members ask about transferring to other areas of Verizon over the last 6 weeks or so.  I spoke with the Company and told them that if some members wanted to transfer, it could reduce the need for a surplus in Florida.  Over the last 3 weeks, we have come to an agreement to provide a $10,000 relocation payment to transfer to another state.  Every employee should have received this email from the Company, either last night or sometime today.  At first, this relocation payment was only going to apply to employees who were in Florida and in a classification that the Company deemed surplus.  I wanted ANY employee who desires to transfer, whether their classification here was surplus or not and that’s what is going to happen.  So for example, if you are a Cable Splicer in Florida and you want to transfer to Idaho as a Cable Splicer, you will get the $10,000 payment.  Now, if you are an Admin Clerk or an EVRC Rep and wish to transfer to Idaho as a Cable Splicer, you can get the $10,000 payment as well.  Of course, in this scenario, you will have to test for that position before you transfer.  In both cases, if you decide to transfer and either don’t like where you are OR if you fail out of training upon arrival, you will NOT come back to Florida unless there is an opening.  I want everyone to know this up front before they decide whether or not to transfer.  We had members that wanted to transfer and we were able to get a relocation payment, which is a huge benefit for those interested.  Of course, the $10,000 is before taxes.

As for the only work group that we know may possibly leave Florida this year, the APC, management in that department is providing some training that may assist those members in the future.  We have had several discussions about the APC and we’re hopeful that if the Company continues their plans to move this work, that we will have jobs that these members can move to without a lot of turmoil or stress for those members.

This may be my next to last report on the possible sale of Verizon properties to Frontier.  Illinois was one of 2 states left to approve the sale, and they did so 2 weeks ago.  West Virginia is the last hurdle and it looks like that will happen in the very near future.  The Company is counting on and planning for July 1^st to be the cutover of the 14 states to Frontier.  I will report more on this next month if there is more news.

I put a brief report on the website yesterday afternoon after the Shareholders Meeting was concluded.  Every proposal the Company put forth was accepted and every proposal that the Shareholders put forth was rejected.  The most interesting thing was when Ivan Seidenberg was questioned about possible future sales of states after the Frontier sale is complete; he responded that there are no plans to sell anymore wire-line states.  This includes Florida.  I have been reporting for several months about the Reverse Morris Trust, and I believe that with this reform it will make it much more difficult for one company to sell off lower revenue assets to companies that can not afford them in the first place.  This should lower the rumors that continue here about Florida being sold.

As for the arbitrations that were scheduled last month, one was a termination and the Company made a financial offer and the grievant accepted the offer.  The other arbitration was regarding the FNFT’s and Buried Wire.  That hearing went very well and we should have the answer in approximately 90 days.  The next 2 arbitrations are both for terminations and it looks like they will both be done in June.

Our International Vice-President Joe Davis asked me to choose a member from our local to represent the 5th District in a new AFL-CIO Youth Outreach Program that will begin next month.  I want to introduce Sherry Isley, who is a member that works in the Tampa CSSC.  As this new program progresses, I’m sure we will be getting updates from Sherry. 

I want to thank the Chiefs and stewards that are keeping up with the overtime rosters in their areas.  There are still some issues with correcting the refused overtime being reported or NOT reported, but we are making a lot of progress.  We have members that are being allowed the time to review and correct the rosters before they are being posted.  Some of the other issues that were causing the rosters to be incorrect, like supervisors not following the process, are being corrected as we are notified.  Our hope continues to be that 2010 will be the first year that the rosters are within 75% and within the language of our Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Our community service event, planned by the Solidarity Committee, Paint Your Heart out took place on April 17^th.  We had 17 members volunteer and 15 actually participated where we painted a house over a period of about 6 hours.  There is a picture of the volunteers on the website.  The Solidarity Committee is also moving forward with the “Adopt a Highway” and fliers are being circulated and posted now.  The areas right now are in Hillsborough County and we are getting information for our other counties as well.

Information for the Solidarity Day at the Trop, which is scheduled for Sunday, June 27^th, should be emailed shortly to those that have responded already and we will also put that info on the website in the next few days.  We had over 220 requests for tickets last week.

We have reached agreement with the Company on a start date for Negotiations and that will be Monday, June 28^th.  We have continued to have sub-committee meetings during the last month and will begin writing proposals shortly.  Our full committee will be working full-time here at the hall beginning on June 14^th.  As bargaining begins, there will be updates, daily if needed, to keep the entire membership informed and to keep the rumors, hopefully, to a minimum.

In Solidarity,

Robert                                          

I want to start off this month’s report with a follow-up to the surplus and bumping that was completed last month.  As everyone should know, Verizon is no longer in the payphone business and the 6 that were remaining in that group went to their new classifications in the beginning of March.  Within 2 weeks, we started receiving calls here at the hall that FNFT’s were being canvassed to perform pay station work, mainly removing pay phones within our operating area, for approximately 5 weeks.  I contacted Labor Relations and stated that the Pubcom employees were just force adjusted and or downgraded and that is their work and they needed to be recalled to their former position if they so desire.  Initially, I was told that they were not going to recall those employees and just use the FNFTt’s.  I then contacted Tim Smith, our regional Vice-President and informed him of the situation.  The first meeting that we had with Tim, back in July of 2009, we informed him and the rest of the Company representatives present, that we were willing to work with the Company, but we have to work within the language of the contract.  About an hour later, I was informed that the Pubcom employees would be recalled to their former position.  4 out of the 6 volunteered to return and the other 2 did not want to go back.  For abiding by the language of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, I say thank you.  We should not have to fight to uphold the language that both sides agreed to abide by, and in this instance, we didn’t have to.   

A little update on the Verizon sale to Frontier – West Virginia and Illinois are the 2 states that have not agreed to the sale at this point.  In Illinois, an Administrative Law judge has recommended to the State’s Commerce Secretary to deny the sale.  As I said last month, if 1 out of the 14 states does not approve the sale, then the whole sale falls through.  In addition, I posted information about this on the website last week, but the loophole in the law, known as the Reverse Morris Trust, was closed by a bill that was passed in the House last week.  This loophole is expected to save Verizon millions and millions in tax-savings. We will report more as this issue progresses. 

We have had members asking us if there are union recommendations for the Verizon stock proxies and hopefully we will have that information to provide next week.  The TCC II will come up with the recommendations and we will email that information to the members.

As reported on our website, Verizon has redesigned the paystubs again, but this time for the better.  We will now be able to see how many hours you worked with a breakdown if it is within the regular 40 hours and also how many hours worked on holidays and overtime.  If you have direct deposit, you will be able to download a copy of your stub, or you can contact payroll services to have a paper copy mailed to you as you have now.

Now, to report on grievances and arbitrations – I reported last month that we were reviewing terminations from the 1^st half of 2009.  We have several that will be arbitrated and we will be doing one of the alleged Sell One More violations.  We had an outstanding termination grievance from 2006 that we thought would be a good case and that member came in finally for a pre-arb during the last month.  This will be the next arb, after the termination set for April 25^th and the language issue scheduled for April 21^st.  The target date for the SOM termination is June, which would be 1 year from the date of discharge.  Based on how many terminations we have in 2010, it looks like we can make our goal of 12 months or less from time of termination to the actual hearing.  This will be a BIG change for our local and something we haven’t done for quite a while.  We continue to hold 3^rd step grievance meetings, and with Labor Relations hiring another person, this has helped get more scheduled.  Due to the very high volume of outstanding grievances, it will still take quite a while to get our heads above water in this department.

I have an update on the 2 Unfair Labor Practices we filed against Verizon, one for the Christmas Eve 4 hours and one for violation of Weingarten Rights.  We were informed that the Regional Director of the NLRB has found no violations by Verizon and we are waiting for that in writing.  Once we get the answer, we will evaluate our next step. 

As we have been discussing Safety with the Company for months, Southern Division held a 3-day Safety rodeo in the Sarasota North work center.  The Union and the Company worked together to ensure employees had the correct safety equipment and I want to thank all the stewards and Chiefs who were a part of this process.  Overall, I think it went very well.  We are now looking to have another Safety rodeo for the members in Upper Suncoast and will report when this gets scheduled.

The Overtime Committee met several times over the last month, and even though the rosters are getting better in a lot of locations, there is still some work to do.  In a couple of areas, there is a union member that is working with the clerks to ensure the refused overtime is correctly entered.  Refused overtime being properly recorded is still the biggest issue we are finding.  I want to address a quick item here related to overtime in outside plant.  If you are one of the ones taking it upon yourself to secure overtime when you have not been asked by the roster, your supervisor will be calling you in for a discussion.  We have a member that is close to being disciplined for unauthorized overtime.  If you have a buddy that is a supervisor or a dispatcher, and you are securing overtime like this, it will be addressed.  We cannot continue to allow this to happen.  By circumventing the roster, overtime will never get close to be equalized.

The Tampa CSSC has created a Facebook page.  I have had several members tell me that they will not join or ask me if they should join.  What I will say to this is even though I have a Facebook account, I do not know much about it, but I do know there are ways for people to see what you write even if they are not your friends.  This means that you don’t post anything that you do not want the Company to know on your page.  I’m not aware of a member being disciplined because of a Facebook entry, but I think it is possible.

I mentioned last month that the CWA and the IBEW in the Northeast were meeting with Verizon to discuss the opportunity to bargain an enhanced incentive for members to be able to retire with some extra cash and also to assist in reducing the need for force reductions and or layoffs.  I believe they met 3 or 4 times and the final result was nothing happened.  The unions were looking for assurance that if they could agree on an enhancement, the Company would not turn around and declare a surplus and lay off members anyway.  The Company would not agree, so there was no movement.  I have spoken with the leaders of the CWA in Texas and California and we have requested to meet with the purpose of bargaining an enhancement for the Verizon West employees.  If or when that happens, we will advise the membership.

On March 23^rd, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  On the same day, an email was sent to all Verizon employees stating numerous issues, but mainly how costs for the Company, active employees and retirees may increase.  Regardless of how you may feel personally about this new law, the email that was sent contains nothing more than scare tactics to all employees and retirees.  I am not 100% up-to-date on the entire law, and from what I hear on the radio and see on television, there aren’t very many people out there who are.  A few days ago, CEO’s of 4 corporations, including Verizon, were requested to appear before a Congressional committee on April 21^st to explain how they come up with the information they put out to their employees.  This will be a very informative meeting and the TCC II, with our local involved, will be there to hear firsthand the explanations given by Ivan Seidenberg.  A report will follow that hearing on our website.

Our Solidarity Committee met again last month with several items discussed.  One was to get involved in the Paint Your Heart Out Tampa Bay event, which will be on Saturday, April 17^th, starting at 8 am.  Each team requires 10 volunteers and I am happy to report that we do have a full team.  It is not to late to volunteer if you would like to.  You can email any of us here at the hall.  Another item that looks like will come to fruition is to adopt a highway in several locations throughout our operating area.  This requires a minimum of 5 volunteers to keep our designated portion of a roadway litter-free four times per year.  The Committee is in the process of locating the different roads to begin asking for volunteers.  More information will be forthcoming.  Another item is an IBEW 824 night at the Trop.  Information is being gathered now, and will be posted on bulletin boards and on our website in the near future.  In the 3^rd quarter, we will be seeking volunteers to walk at an event for Breast Cancer.  If any of these items interest you, please email your Rep.

We have had several Bargaining sub-committee meetings during the last month and will continue in April.  We are still in the process of collecting information from the Company to review so we can begin writing proposals by early May.  We will be meeting with the Company in a couple of weeks to discuss possible items for bargaining and also a possible start date for Negotiations.

Finally, I want to let you know that Laura Beck, one of our secretary’s’ here at the hall was involved in a motorcycle accident last weekend.  She is sore, but doing better now.  I expect her to be out for another week and I would like you to keep her in your thoughts.

In Solidarity,

Robert

I want to start off with the Company’s surplus announcement for the first quarter in the Florida region.  We had been hearing numbers of 200-350 employees, throughout many classifications, and that these numbers would be mostly accomplished with voluntary separations.  As you should already know, our number in Florida was 1 General Clerk, within the Verizon Plus stores in Tampa. That is good news for us, but I do not want to make light of even 1 member having to enter the bumping process or being laid off.  Fortunately, there is 1 General Clerk that does want to leave and is taking the ISP so no other member will be affected by this surplus.  That is GREAT news for our members!

As for the 4^th quarter surplus/bumping, it is finally complete.  We were given the information last Thursday to verify all the bumps were correct and after we studied the information, it looks like it was done contractually.  We did have one member inquire as to why she did not get her first choice, and after checking, reported back to the member that her first choice was actually in a higher wage schedule.  So, as I report this month, we have gone through 2 very laborious bumping processes from the 3^rd and 4^th quarter of 2009 where the Company followed the contract.  All the employees involved in the 4^th quarter bump have reported to their new locations this week and to our knowledge, there are no outstanding issues.

We were just advised this afternoon that the Company will be canvassing Eastern, Upper Suncoast and Tampa Core splicers to go to West Virginia on a temporary assignment, until the end of April.  We still do not have enough work for Splicers and this will hopefully keep us off the radar.  The Company will not be asking for volunteers from Southern because they say they have 80 work orders in progress and if they allowed Splicers from Southern to go, they would probably have to utilize contractors and they do not want to do that for this work.

During the last month, I have been speaking with Myles Calvey, who is our TCC II Chairman.  He told me about a conversation between himself and Verizon Labor Relations, that centered on a possible incentive that would be greater than either our ISP or other local’s that have a double ISP.  Myles stated that the Company seemed interested because they would like to have pension eligible employees be able to leave and actually retire so we didn’t have to continue to lay off employees.  Myles also stated that for the Union to seriously talk about an incentive for the membership, they would also have to include a guarantee of no layoffs for a certain period of time.  I have spoken with Rick Carpenter and requested a meeting with the same Labor Relations people from New York.  This evening I was talking to the President of the CWA Local in Texas and he told me that Trinidad is aware of a possible meeting discussing the incentive as well.  The Northeast Locals, including the CWA Locals and IBEW 827 have a tentative meeting next week to discuss the options.  Myles told me he would let me know the details after the meeting is over.  It is possible that we may have a meeting that includes Texas and California, which make up Verizon West.  We don’t know if anything will come of this, but Trinidad started telling techs in Texas about a possibility this afternoon, so even though this will make the Chiefs and the Union Hall’s phones ring off the hook next week, I wanted to let our membership know what we know.

If you haven’t heard, Verizon notified the CWA in New York that they have declared a surplus of 3938 positions within 39 different job titles across the state.  I asked John to get some more information for me to report and what we know right now is that there will be a 15 day volunteer period, but we do not know the dates for that or what the off-property date is going to be.  The Company is trying to reduce headcount without losing the qualified employees to continue business as usual.  I have been keeping in touch with IBEW Business Managers around the country to see what is going on in regards to surplus announcements and the availability for Florida to receive more jobs and more importantly, to keep the jobs we have now.

I have an update on the EVRC Reps that were in the 13-day boot camp to prepare for the FSC test.  39 employees were in the first class and all of them passed the written test at the end of that training segment.  4 out of the 39 were not successful in the structured interview portion, which I just found out about last night.  We will be addressing this with the Company to find out how an employee can be good enough to deal with customers who are on our Copper network, but not be able to deal with customers on the Fiber network.

Now, regarding the new attendance policy that the Company put into effect this week, the Union has filed a grievance regarding the way the Company intends to discipline employees as it relates to their attendance and occasions.  As everyone should know, the Company has the ability under Article II, Section 1, paragraph 1.4 to “administer work standards and performance requirements.”  What the Union is asking for is to not have a standard, automatic step of discipline ready as soon as an employee exceeds the objective.  In addition we are requesting the Company and the Union talk about the issues in certain work locations where attendance is high, to work together to help everyone understand the importance of coming to work when you are able to do so.  We believe that in certain work locations, the manner in which employees are treated correlate to a higher rate of absenteeism.  This applies mainly to the employees who work in Inside Plant.  Hopefully, we can report some progress on this issue at the meeting next month or through our web site if something occurs sooner.

We are close to 1000 members signed up to receive updates from our website and I want to report that we have begun to send emails to specific work groups and classifications that talk about issues specific to that work group.  If you are in the SRC or the CSSC, or you are an FNFT or a CZT II, you have received an update within the past 2 weeks.  When one of the Reps or myself attends a meeting that deals solely with a particular work group, we are advising all members what was discussed during the meeting, through these emails.  Since we began this, we have had numerous members email or call us to tell us they think that is a great thing.  We know that we cannot personally talk to every member after every meeting, whether you’re a steward or a Business Manager, but we can communicate with any member that is signed up to receive updates.  I’m really happy with the responses we have been receiving and I hope it continues, especially once we enter bargaining.  If there is any Chief that wants to make sure an important message gets to all the members in their work groups, let us know and we will send it to them.

I have a brief report on the arbitrations that have been scheduled in 2010.  We were to hear a termination on February 24^th, but the Company made an offer to the grievant that was accepted by her.  Our next arbitration will be on April 21^st, which involves a language issue and then we have another termination on April 29^th.  We are currently reviewing termination grievances from 2009 and will be submitting several for arbitration shortly.  As for grievances, we are reviewing them from the oldest to the most current, that have been through 3^rd step and are just sitting in a file waiting on a decision to arbitrate or withdraw.  I reported several months ago, there are quite a few outstanding and we are reviewing the grievances and beginning to talk to the Chiefs that filed them, if they haven’t retired, and will use some of these outstanding issues to form proposals in bargaining.  I do not foresee any other language issues being arbitrated before we begin bargaining.  As I said, we will see what issues are recurring over and over again and try to resolve those issues at the table, if possible.

As for the Safety policy the Company wants to implement, we have met a couple more times in the last month and will continue to talk this month.  I want to thank all of the Chief Stewards who provided us with information regarding workplace safety meetings and who was the Company or Union safety person in their areas.  We continue to tell the Company that we believe wholeheartedly in safety and want to work with the Company to ensure that every member has the tools and/or knowledge to perform their job safely.  We do not need the threat of some form of discipline to work safely.  We will also keep you informed as these talks progress.

I reported a little on the Verizon/Frontier sale last month and I do not have much more to report this evening.  I did attend a meeting with the IBEW local unions that are going to become Frontier to discuss the differences in wages and benefits and general working conditions.  Fortunately, every local union has a successorship clause, which means, among other things, that simply changing names of the Company cannot change their benefits.  These local unions were meeting with representatives from Verizon and Frontier this week in Baltimore and I do not know the results of that meeting right now.  Our local will continue to be involved in this sale process and hopefully we can help our brothers and sisters around the country in the future if the need us to help.  As for the calls we have received over the last month in regards to Frontier moving into the City Center or work orders with Frontier’s name on them, we are NOT currently being sold to Frontier.  I have spoken with upper level management and to the IBEW Telecommunications Department and there is no proposed sale.  As we can see with the sale that is going on now, it takes well over a year to go through this process.  If I ever hear that we are being sold, or that there are serious talks about selling Florida to another company, you will be advised.  There is nothing to hide if in fact this was to occur. 

Our Bargaining Committee did meet last month to review the surveys that were returned and to start some preliminary work on issues that may become proposals.  During the month of March and beyond, sub-committees will be meeting to do a lot of research work on many different issues that are important to our membership. I do want to say that if you have NOT returned your survey yet, please do so.  We have a lot of very smart members and even though we have a very competent and experienced Committee, we still want every idea or suggestion that you may have.

Our Solidarity Committee is meeting again next week to work on our next event and we will report on that next month or start reporting on the website if we have an event planned before the next General Meeting.

Our Overtime Committee has met several times in the last month and will be meeting again next week.  We still have some issues out there regarding mainly how refused overtime is recorded, if at all, and also some jurisdictional issues in several Tampa yards.  Chiefs will be a part of this process and we will report through the website as well.

Finally, I want to talk about some opportunities that we have not had in Florida for quite a while.  I started this report with information about the surplus conditions we’ve had over the last 6 months.  I want to end the report with good news for our members.  We are the only local that is increasing headcount in our next to highest wage schedule.  We were notified during the last month that we would be taking on the Circuit Provisioning work from California in our BRPC downtown Tampa.  This placed 10 wage schedule A positions up for bid last week.  We also received 5 Business Response Representatives, wage schedule E in the same center.  The 5 E positions will not be up for bid because they became available during this last bump and that saved 5 employees from bumping someone else.  Then we were notified that the MCO in Tampa would be getting the work now being performed in California, which would add an additional 14 wage schedule A positions for our members.  The 14 positions in the MCO will be filled by the seven Generalist who currently work in that department, upon completing the necessary tests and the other 7 will be posted for bid by our membership.  When I look around the country and talk with other local unions, for IBEW Local 824 to increase headcount in wage schedule A, that means something.  I believe we are working hard to ensure our members have jobs and have an opportunity to advance into a higher wage schedule and learn something new that can keep them valuable in the workplace.  We will continue to seek out any work and bring it to Florida.  The number one issue to our members, based on the responses from the surveys we received so far was job security.  The more work we can bring in, the more security our members have.

In Solidarity,

Robert

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 4^th quarter surplus, I believe we are in the 5^th round of bumping now.  The only surplus we have been notified of for the 1^st 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 4^th arbitration for this year.  We should be getting our 1^st 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 16^th 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

I hope that everyone had a Happy and Safe Holiday Season and now we can turn our attention as a membership to the New Year with all the challenges we will face together.

I would like to start off with a brief review from the last 6 months of 2009.  After taking office in July, we were faced with the Company challenging our Article XI language, which was decided by an Arbitrator.  Everyone knows about that decision.  Since that time, with the 3^rd and 4^th quarter surplus announcements by the Company, no member has been involuntarily separated.  Several members decided to accept layoff instead of bumping or accepted the ISP and retired.  Our local, along with local 89 in Washington State, local 723 in Indiana, and local 986 in Ohio did not face involuntary separations in the 4^th quarter, and there were some staggering numbers reported across the country, mainly in Outside Plant.  We have not been notified of a surplus for the first quarter of 2010 and hopefully we don’t, but there has been a surplus announced within different classifications every quarter since 2007.  In 2009, the Telecommunication branch of the IBEW declined by approximately 5000 members.  This is not only Verizon, but all areas of telecommunications.

The work group that concerns me the most right now is the APC.  As we all know, the company stated last year that this work would be moving up north sometime during 2010.  As of this week, we were told that the Company will be providing IVAPP training to these members and we are hopeful we will have very little issues when that center closes.

We have been told that FIOS orders have increased slightly over the past month and that is good news for ALL of our members.  6 months ago, the dreaded Door-to-Door program was averaging 25 or so FIOS orders being placed each day with a very high cancellation rate before the install date.  Last month, we were told that 100-125 orders were being placed per day with less than a 20% cancellation rate.  If this trend continues and even grows, the less chance a surplus will be declared for the FNFT’s.  With an increase of FIOS orders, not only is it better for the FNFT’s, but also for the CSSC members, the dispatchers, the SRC, and the FSC.  All of these classifications rely on FIOS work.  Yesterday we were notified that the FNFT’s in Tampa were going to be required to work a 6^th day for the next 2 weeks.  In Southern, they will be asking for volunteers to work their laydays. 

The surplus that was declared within the Cable Splicer classification in the 3^rd quarter, which was 51 employees, was called off after the Union and the Company discussed all the contractors performing Splicing work.  Most of the contractors, not all of them, are off the property and our Splicers are performing these job functions now.  The Company says we still do not have enough work right now to keep all of the Splicers busy company-wide and have canvassed for volunteers to go back to West Virginia.  The first group of 22, from Eastern Division, will be leaving Monday for approximately 2-3 months.

6 months ago, we started collecting email addresses from the membership to be able to communicate easier and we are approaching 1000 members signed up.  It is really amazing how many members communicate either with me or my staff or a Board member by email.  We need to continue to collect email addresses as we approach Contract Negotiations this year.

Starting in September, we heard 1 grievance at arbitration per month and we have 3 additional grievances that will be heard before March of this year.  We had 7 Pre-Arbs in the month of December, all for terminations.  As I have reported for a while now, we had termination grievances dating back to 2001.  All termination grievances have been reviewed through the end of 2008 and we are currently working on 1^st quarter 2009.  We hope to have the scenario of a termination grievance go through the entire process and if it will be arbitrated, to have that done within 12-14 months before the end of this year.  Our goal is to be no further than 2 years out on any grievance and that will take a lot of time and hard work, but I think it can be done.

In the CSSC, a grievance was filed last month when a member was denied a steward when the supervisor met to review some of the calls received by that rep.  Management stated that since the “review” did not result in discipline, no steward was required.  As the reps in the CSSC know, those discussions lead to discipline quite a bit.  The union’s position is that anytime a member is being asked questions about their job, they are legally entitled to have union representation.  We met with the NLRB yesterday and will keep you informed of the progress.

We’ve had additional work brought into the BSC, BCC and the CSSC, we did not get a 24 hour copper repair center, but did take on some work from New Jersey and long-distance offline.  The most work that was brought in came to the SRC in St. Pete.  We have had training issues there from day one and we still have many members who are not properly trained to do some of these new functions.  It’s an ongoing process to get everyone trained and I think we will continue to have training issues with work that is slated to come in there this year as well.  A lot of the problems have been a lack of communication from the managers to the members.  This was addressed this week and we are hopeful we will see improvements.

We started the Membership Training last September and after a suspension due to the Holidays, will continue again next week.  We are really happy with the results so far and the feedback that we have received.

The Solidarity Committee that was formed last month, met to discuss ways to get more members involved and to create a sense of unity within all of us.  The first event they are planning is a Family Fun Day on Sunday, January 31^st, here at the Hall.  There will be door prizes, arts and crafts and other activities and food for the entire family and we urge every member and their family to attend.  I would like to thank the committee – April O’Neal and Ben Navarre, from the CSSC who are Co-Chairs of the committee, Mike Strehl, Zaida Menedez, Patrice Canty and Frank Leonetti also from the CSSC; Jody Irish from the FSC; Harry Kooshak from the Ybor yard; Fred Lauper from Sarasota; Melissa Vivian and Lynette Ettouati from the ECOM Center; Pam Elleby and Tina Tyler from the SRC; and Jason Delph from Tarpon. 

December is usually a quieter month and this was no exception this year.  We are in the middle of the 4^th quarter surplus, which started with the members in Pubcom.  So far, we have not had any issues raised about the bumps but are paying close attention as we did through the last bump.  Out of the 12 employees in Pubcom, 6 elected the ISP and 6 entered into the world of bumping.  More information will come as we receive it. 

I spoke last month about the Equalization of Overtime and we hopefully have come up with a system of making the OT rosters as close to being correct as possible.  Of course, only time will tell and we will report in the upcoming months of the progress.  The Outside Plant Chief Stewards will be attending a meeting later this month to explain the entire process.

I also reported last month about the Company’s intent to implement a new Safety Policy this year.  After speaking with Business Managers from around the country, we have all written the Company with the purpose of requesting Bargaining on this issue since it is a change in working conditions.  This will be addressed by each local with their respective Labor Relations people the same all across the country.  As we get more information, it will be relayed to the members.

The Company also wants to implement a new Attendance Policy, which will involve more discipline when you are over the objective.  We are still in the process of reviewing this policy and I will be speaking with Labor about this next week.  Information to the members will follow.

Right now, we are in the process of gathering information that we will review as we move closer to Negotiations.  After a brief conversation with Labor, there has been no start date for Bargaining and as soon as a date is set, the membership will be informed.  Erik and I have discussed and selected your Bargaining Committee for 2010.  I will have Dan Wagner, off my staff who served on the Union’s committee in 2005 and of course Erik Jones, who also was on the 2005 and 2002 committees will be on the committee as the President.  Brent Chapman, a 36+-year member, prior Officer and Executive Board member and a Chief Steward for many years, who is a Cable Splicer from St Pete will be on the Committee.  Doug Blackburn, a 22+-year member, steward for many years and recently appointed Chief Steward, who is a Fiber Network Field Technician from Sarasota will be on the committee.  Zaida Menendez, a 12+-year member, Chief Steward in the CSSC in Tampa will be on the committee.   Todd Bolick, a 12-year member, steward or chief for most of those years, who is a CO Technician in Eastern Division will be on the committee.  Melissa Braswell, a 15-year member and a steward in the BCC in Tampa will be on the committee.  And lastly, Frank Franzen, a 36 year member, steward and Chief Steward for many years, prior Executive Board member and prior Assistant Business Manager of our local and a member of the Union’s Bargaining committee in 2002 and 2005, who currently works as a Specialist in the Tampa MCO will be on the committee.  We will have our first meeting as a committee this month and begin working on behalf of the membership.  As I stated last month, I plan on involving more members through sub-committees and will be seeking volunteers once they are established.

I hope to see you on the 31^st for the Solidarity Fun Day.

In Solidarity,

Robert

I want to start by giving an update of the 3^rd quarter bumping that was completed last week.  This all starts with 15 employees being declared surplus, in several different locations.  A couple of weeks ago, the Company notified us that the bumps were complete.  After looking at the spreadsheet, we noticed that several members did not get the choice that they should have received.  Of course, they were senior members, which affected all the choices of the junior employees below them.  We had members receiving letters stating they were moving to a new location, then the next day receive another letter stating they were no longer affected, then finally getting another letter telling them they were affected again.  We started collecting the checklists of the affected employees so we could verify the classification and location that the employee wanted to bump to.  With the exception of one employee, to our knowledge, everyone received the first choice they were eligible for, based on their seniority.  We are reviewing that one employee’s training record and may be filing a grievance.  The 15 employees originally declared surplus affected 53 employees before the mistakes and eventually only affected 39 members.  2 members elected to take a layoff and leave the company in lieu of exercising their bumping rights.  I believe that by staying on top of this entire process for days on end, we were able to ensure that the right thing was being done for everyone affected.

Now, information for the 4^th quarter surplus – as was stated on the website in November, the only involuntary surplus was going to occur in the Garage Mechanic job title and in Pubcom.  Fortunately, there was a volunteer in a garage in Tampa, so no one will be forced to bump or layoff there.  In Pubcom, as you all know, Verizon is getting out of that business.  So, the ISP window closed yesterday and we will wait to see how many took the ISP and how many are left to enter the bumping process.  I will give you an update on that when we find out.

Grievances and Arbitrations – Just to give you an update on where we are with grievances and arbitrations, and I will start with arbitrations first.  We are in the process of reviewing terminations from 2008 and hope to be into 1^st quarter 2009 terminations before the end of the year.  Now, for outstanding grievances – from 2001 through 2004, we have 1313 grievances that are in a write and hold status.  What that means is that the grievance has passed the 3^rd step and is waiting on a decision to be arbitrated.  2005 we have 290 grievances pending 3^rd step, 2006 we have 238 grievances pending 3^rd step, 2007 we have 620 grievances pending 3^rd step and 2008 we have 835 grievances pending 3^rd step.  So, from 2005 through 2008 there are 1983 grievances pending.  Now we have not reviewed most of these older grievances to see what the issues are, but will be doing so soon.  2009, as of yesterday, we have 1879 grievances that have been filed.  33 have been terminations and 24 of those are pending 3^rd step.  So, the total of all outstanding grievances pending 3^rd step, excluding 2009 equals 3296.  We also have 5 pre-arb meetings set up for this month.

This week we had our 11^th Membership Training class and to date have had approximately 400 members come through the class.  All the members are saying that the class was very beneficial and some of our junior members have stated that the class has opened their eyes to what unions are all about.  Our senior members have said that it has given them an awakening of sorts to hopefully get back involved again.  We are through with the classes for this year because of the Holiday season and will start in back up again in January.

We have been gathering information on what we believe are FMLA violations by the Company to see how we are going to address some of the big issues.  We found out that the CWA has filed a lawsuit against Verizon in 3 of their districts and after I inquired to the Telephone Department in Washington, the IBEW legal department is reviewing to see if we can follow suit or possibly join with the CWA.  As I get more information on this, it will be passed on to the membership.

The Merit Increase committee has been reinstated and we recently approved of several merit increases in the month on November.

The American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, is conducting a nation-wide organizing campaign for all the TSA workers at the airports.  If you are traveling by air, please take a luggage tag or 2 and place them on your bags in support of this campaign.  I believe the tags are on the back table.

One of the major issues that have been outstanding for many, many years is the equalization of overtime. Hundreds of grievances have been filed on this subject over the years.  We met with the Company yesterday and have a follow-up meeting in 2 weeks, and hopefully it looks like we will have a system in place to properly track and keep up to date on all overtime worked and refused.  There is a test going on in Tampa North and we will report on the results then.

In the RCMAC, we lost the work from the Carolina’s, which created a surplus of 9 employees.  In the NDC, we also lost the Carolina’s, but picked up Texas, which created 9 or 10 positions.   Instead of declaring an official surplus in the RCMAC, the Company had 9 employees go on-loan to the NDC.  Even though we lost the Carolina’s in RCMAC, it looks like we will continue to have that group in Florida.  It’s also a good sign that we have the Texas work for the NDC and will continue to keep that work group in Florida as well.

Everyone probably knows that we were trying to get the EVRC to be a 24/7 center, but that didn’t happen.  They did pick up another state, New Jersey, and are going to extend the Center’s hours to midnight.  I believe the 4-12 tour will begin in January.

Effective November 22^nd, the dispatch clerks located in the CPE Center, on 301, were upgraded to wage schedule C-1 from wage schedule D.  This was an increase of $1.37 per hour.  Their job title was changed from Dispatch Clerk to Business Response Generalist.  In addition, the LBSC within the Care Center is being disbanded and absorbed back into the Customer Care Rep and 7 of those employees moved from downtown to the new group at 301.  This upgrade has been in the works since earlier this year and now it’s finally completed.

The Company sent me a new Safety policy that they want to start enforcing in the beginning of 2010.  This policy contains how an employee should be disciplined in the event they do not follow safety procedures.  After we discuss this with the Company, we will get information out to the Officers and Chiefs and also put it on the website.

The Solidarity committee is tentatively scheduled to meet later this month and their report will be posted to the web as well.  I want to say thank you to the members that volunteered to serve on the committee.

Historically, we have begun negotiations somewhere around May, and I will be talking to Labor shortly to verify when we will begin.  I will announce the Union’s Bargaining Committee at the January meeting and I plan on having several sub-committees and will be seeking volunteers to serve on those shortly.

Remember, the January General Meeting will be on the 2^nd Friday, due to the Holidays.  Reminders will be sent through email and will also be posted on the website.

I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe Holiday Season and look forward to seeing you next month.

In Solidarity,

Robert