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GE Announces Sale of Gear Business
Predict End of Work by September ‘09
The possibility that Local
201 had anticipated for more than a year became reality when GE
Supply Chain VP Scott Ernest announced, in a communication on July 2nd,
“the sale of select product lines of our gear manufacturing
business to Philadelphia Gear”. He cited “low
volume and limited growth opportunities” due to “fewer ships and
submarines…being built and the shift in propulsion…to electric
drive.” While the deal with Philadelphia Gear does not include
gears for nuclear propulsion of military vessels, GE “will not bid
on future contracts” and will “work with the Navy to help them
identify sources for any subsequent nuclear gear manufacturing”,
according to the communication.
That same day, in all-employee meetings, Gear Plant Manager
Mark Allard clarified that what is being sold is “intellectual
property” as well as some “select equipment”. He reiterated that
the Gear Plant will “fulfill current orders and backlog” which
will mean that production in the Gear Plant will continue until
at least September 2009, when the last unit is scheduled to
be completed. However reductions in the workforce are expected
to continue as the scope of the work narrows toward final assembly
and shipping. All future gear sets built to GE’s designs will be
produced by other manufacturers.
Allard further explained that the Gear Plant building is not
part of the announced sale and “no decision has been made regarding
the future of the building.” While it is expected that “all
employees will be offered other jobs in Lynn or be eligible to apply
for SERO [or Bonus retirement],” he acknowledged that “this
represents a discontinuance of an existing product line and as such
employees are entitled to…78-weeks of rate guarantee and
special placement options” (Article 22 language from the
National Union Contract). Local 201 has previously
been told by Company officials that sale was not expected to
cause any layoffs “to the street” of any 201 members.
While painful, this announcement was no surprise to the
Union or to Gear Plant Employees. The Gear Plant work force has
been reduced by almost 100 people since February ’07 through a
combination of layoffs and attrition (upgrades & retirements with no
backfills). Despite Local 201’s efforts to convince GE to shift to
new product lines in the GP, including Wind Power gearing, and
appeals to the Defense Department and other government officials for
help, no new work has been brought in, or even seriously bid on, in
this period. Meanwhile management encouraged some of its most
experienced front line supervisors and knowledgeable technical staff
to look for other positions or retire. These fact patterns were all
pointed to by the Union over the last year and a half as we argued a
series of Fundamental Grievances alleging that the
Company was exiting the gear business and responsible for Article
22 benefits and procedures. The Company confirmed “off the
record” that this seemed to be where things were headed, and even
recently settled some of the Article 22 grievances to the
Union’s satisfaction. On July 2nd the Company
announced that they in fact had reached an agreement selling any
future Gear business.
With the announced sale of the business, the Union promptly
requested bargaining as provided for in Article 22 and our
Layoff and Transfer Supplement (LOTS).
The first session was held Monday, July 14th.
Representing the Union at these negotiations is the full GE
Grievance Board (BA, Pres., VP, & Bd. Members) and 5 witnesses from
the shop: 1st shift Stewards Mike Reidy & Gregg
Johnson, 2nd shift Stewards Roger LeMaire &
George Hoomis, and 1st shift Hobber Geof Boland.
Much of the first session involved providing information
and clarification of the situation. The Company has agreed to the
Union request to form a replacement committee per LOTS with two
Union and two Company representatives to review all Gear Plant
placements going forward as to department, plant-wide, and “special
placement” ( as provided for in Article XXII). The Gear Plant
still has approximately 120 Bargaining Unit employees. At this
point the Company projects that about 25 reductions will take place
in the remainder of ’08, with the rest being moved in ’09, or as
work is completed.
Business Agent Casilli asked the Company to keep in mind
a number of points:
“A) The historic nature of
Gear Plant and the loyalty, allegiance, pride and tradition of many
of our members that have seen themselves as “life long Gear
Planters”; this is reflected in annual Gear Plant retiree
gatherings.
B) Our union/members
co-operation in the recent past crisis of Gear Plant/LCS
delinquencies and the membership‘s January 24, 2006 vote waiving
contractual rules per management’s request.
C) Your (Company)
anticipated needs to retain some important unique skills during the
next 1½ year period, and possibly, some flexibility needs.
D) Trying to minimize
disruptions and bumping into AE, and keeping in mind the sadness of
the Local and its members seeing this historic treasure being lost
after years of lobby efforts with government officials and GE to
bring in new types of work, including wind power.
Taking all these factors into
account, we would request consideration of [the] following
…proposals…”
Casilli then proposed that
the Company go beyond what the Company believes are its contractual
Article 22 responsibilities in order to reach an agreement that
would address the concerns of both parties as he had outlined.
The Company has agreed to consider the Union’s proposals and
negotiations will continue.
AFL-CIO Calls for Right to
Join a Union and to Health Care
TURN AMERICA AROUND!!
The drug
companies whine about research costs then make double-digit profits
while they spend twice as much on advertising than they do on
developing new drugs—straight out of your co-pays.
The CEO responsible for the Bear Stearns financial
services collapse gets a multi-million dollar walking
package—guaranteed with your tax dollars—while foreclosures eat away
at our neighborhoods.
A worker writes to Local 201, “We whisper about
unions here. They tell us we’ll lose our jobs if we say “union” out
loud.” When it comes to the right to organize a union, we are
living under the Taliban.
Had enough? Time to Turn America Around!
The AFL-CIO, the national coalition of unions which
includes our own union, the Communications Workers of America, is
gearing up for an all-out effort to elect a President and
Congress to change course—and then to make sure they actually do
change course in 2009!
The goal is to educate our members, friends and
families on the key issues and then get them to vote in November.
The second stage is to take those issues to Congress and the new
President next year, leaving nothing to chance.
The CWA is leading the charge on health care reform and passing
the Employee Free Choice Act. We are calling for quality health
care for all Americans that will “control costs” with “a
strong role for government” to make it happen.
To give the millions of workers who say they want to join a
union a chance to actually do so, the Employee Free Choice Act will
let a union be recognized once a majority sign cards, provide
neutral arbitration to settle a first contract, and penalties for
the corporate criminals who violate labor law at their whim, without
the slightest fear of punishment.
The Campaign Gets Started:
Alex Brown, Local 201
Vice-President, has been asked by the CWA and Local 201 to lead the
effort for health care in Massachusetts. The Local 201 Legislative
Committee has started talking about the campaign and to push for
increased political COPE check-off for political contributions.
The Education Committee and the Legislative Committee are
working on plans to train “one-on-one” health care warriors, in May,
to take the campaigns into the Local 201 workplaces. They will be
circulating “Health Care and EFCA” (Employee Free Choice Act) cards
throughout the plant. The national CWA has committed funds to train
140 activists from our Local to be organizers—we need YOU to be a
Health Care Warrior.
The North Shore Labor Council is having an “Open Meeting”
to kick off the Health Care Campaign this month—Wednesday,
April 26 at the Local 201 Union Hall at 7 PM. All union members
and their families are invited to attend. Sixty union members and
retirees came to a Labor Council showing of the Michael Moore movie
“SiCKO” last month.
In May the NSLC will start going door-to-door in New Hampshire
with information about the Health Care Campaign, including facts
about Senator John McCain’s plan to tax your health care benefits.
As AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka put it, “What’s
happening to our economy is the predictable result of the 30 years
of the conservative, neo-liberal, profit-skimming corporate policies
we’ve been talking about—free trade, deregulation, privatization and
de-unionization chief among them.”
We’ll be working all Spring, all Summer, and all Fall
to get rid of the free-market extremists. Then next year we hold
the feet to the fire of the new Congress and the new President.
DUES AND BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS
By Business Agent Ric Casilli
I reported to the April
Membership meeting that we not only had a balanced budget in 2007,
but realized a surplus for the Local of almost $62,000 with close to
a $1.5 million budget. I also presented a 2008 “guideline” budget
which, if followed, could realize about a $12,000 surplus at the
Local level.
These monies give us additional reserves in the event we come
up “short” in 2009 attempting to transition to the difficult dues
structure mandated by the IUE- CWA Merger Agreement of 2000.
As I stated before, Local 201 was not enthused about the dues
structure contained in the 2000 Merger Agreement between the IUE and
CWA. Local 201 campaigned against that piece of the Agreement. The
“cap”, on the amount of monies that have to be sent by Locals to the
International and Member’s Relief Fund (International Strike Fund),
is eliminated in Jan. 2009. Also, IUE locals must begin paying into
the CWA Defense Fund. The net result is that, in 2009, IUE Locals
are facing either huge dues increases or serious shortages of funds,
or a mixture of both.
A secondary complaint of Local 201, and other IUE locals, is
that the CWA dues structure is not “flat” like our traditional IUE
dues, every member at a location paying the same dues for the same
representation. CWA’s dues structure mandates no less then a
MINIMUM monthly dues of 2.25 hours of each individual’s pay,
thus individuals pay different amounts and those amounts could go up
during the year
National meetings held recently between IUE and CWA
representatives over these issues made a couple of things clear.
First, CWA will not change their fundamental dues
structure for the IUE division. They intend to charge IUE locals the
same way they charge all their traditional CWA Locals, taking their
International portions calculated on each individual’s hourly pay.
Any change to that would require a Convention vote which would have
little chance of passing. Thus, IUE Locals will have to
deal with the big dues increase or big cuts dilemma.
CWA informed the IUE locals that many CWA locals elect to charge
well above the 2.25 hours pay per month minimum dues required (some
up to 3.0 hours pay per month). All monies collected above the 2.25
minimum stay 100% with the Local union.
Second, CWA will approve an administrative “option” for IUE
Locals, whereas a Local can choose to keep a “flat based” dues
(every member of the bargaining unit pays the same) rather than dues
being charged differently for each hourly or salaried job rate. This
would not change the amount of money sent to the International, but
it would allow IUE Locals a traditional flat based
dues system as well as freeze members’ dues for the year,
maintaining just one annual dues increase. Dues would be
calculated by using the “average” pay rate of all members at a
location during the October before each upcoming dues year.
I am drawing up some proposals for our May 13th
Local 201 Full Policy Board Meeting. I will try to address
an approximate $330,000 gap ( mostly caused by new mandated
dues structure) in funds for Local 201 in 2009, will include
assessing a figure higher then the 2.25 hours pay per month minimum
required, tapping our local strike fund ( not International Strike
Fund), and making some modest cuts. It will include keeping
our traditional flat based dues system.
I would like to get over this hurdle with our proud Local
still active and effective on all 3 sides of the CWA triangle:
collective bargaining representation, organizing, and political/
community involvement. Some proposals may require Constitutional
changes, others may not. The Local 201 Policy Board and/or
Constitution Committee will need to discuss the different proposals
and they could come in front of the Membership Meetings any time
from May to the end of the year.
