Summary #6
UE Pushes for More Paid Time Off;
Raises Apparatus Shop Issues

NEW YORK – Thursday, May 31

Improvements in paid time off for GE workers are "long, long overdue," the UE bargaining committee told GE on Thursday. The union also introduced proposals specific to workers in GE Apparatus Service Shops.

The union pointed out that there have been no improvements to the hourly vacation schedule since 1982.

UE-GE Conference Board Secretary Steve Tormey noted that beginning in 2003, GE increased vacation time for exempt salaried workers, but that the schedule for union members has remained untouched. For example, exempt salaried workers receive three weeks for five years and four weeks for ten years' service. Tormey quoted from a GE document which gave its reasons for increasing these benefits while offering no improvement to hourly and non-exempt workers. The company concluded in the document that its current vacation allowances for the latter groups were "competitive."

"This is so much poppycock," Tormey told the company. GE talks a lot about the need to be "globally competitive," but the amount of vacation it allows its U.S. hourly and non-exempt workers is much less than what GE workers in Europe and Canada receive.

NEW WORKERS NEED MORE VACATION

The union is especially concerned with offering more vacation to less senior workers, noting that "the demographics have changed," with large numbers of newer workers especially in Erie and Ft. Edward. "As we get more service, we tend to forget what it was like during those first few years at GE when it’s hard to get any time off," said Frank Fusco, Local 506. Pat Rafferty, also of Erie Local 506, reminded the company that in Erie, "You’re not hiring young people just out of high school, like I was when I started in the plant. You’re hiring people in their 40s who already have families. They need time off."

Ed Baran, Local 751, noted that plant shutdowns eat up most or all of people’s vacation. John Payne, Local 731, recently hit eight years’ service. "Now I’ve got a third week of vacation. But GE can make you use it for a shutdown. To me, that’s not a vacation."

The union proposed changes to vacation contract language, including a limit on vacation shutdowns to a maximum of two weeks in summer, and exempting workers with two weeks or less vacation from the shutdown provision. The union proposed that vacation time be extended if other compensable time event (such as death in family or jury duty) or the employee’s personal illness occur during a vacation shutdown. UE proposed that the employee have the option to apply vacation to any period of absence due to illness, layoff or personal business.

The union called for allowing vacation time to be taken in two-hour increments. When John Gritti, company spokesperson, said this would be difficult to manage, Marcia Barnhart, Local 731, disagreed with him. UE President John Hovis told the company that most UE members in GE "don’t live in large cities where things run 24 hours," but in smaller towns where the banks close at three or four and other offices close at five. Workers sometimes need a couple of hours on a workday to take care of urgent personal business. Steve Tormey reminded GE negotiators that the provision allowing personal time to be taken in one-hour increments was originally a company proposal.

The union proposed elimination of the one-month return-to-work requirement for vacation qualification when a worker did not work the last calendar day of the year. Frank Fusco addressed the unfairness of this to workers laid off for all or most of December, who must then work all of January before they regain vacation rights.

SICK AND PERSONAL DAYS

There has been no increase in sick and personal days for hourly workers in 37 years said Steve Tormey, so the union proposes a "substantial" increase in 2007, as well as a language change prohibiting the company from applying S&P days without the employee’s consent. Tormey read from a company document that offered employees advice on how to "care for yourself." It included an admonition to "find time for yourself," yet the company has stubbornly resisted any increase in sick and personal time since 1970.

John Payne called the current contractual allowance "antiquated." John Hovis commented, "It’s a different kind of society today" from what it was in 1970. "Today usually both parents work full-time," making the lack of adequate sick and personal time much more of a hardship on families.

Company negotiator John Curtin said, "This is one of the most abused sections of the contract," complaining that there is often an epidemic of S&P day use in November and December by employees who mistakenly believe they must "use them or lose them." "That makes it very hard to sell this to operations management." Ed Baran responded that a lot of people in Niles carry their S&P days over from year to year "because they are in fear of a plant closing." Curtin replied, "It’s wise to save them."

On holidays, Tormey presented the union’s proposals for one additional paid holiday, and to change from two weeks to four weeks the length of time on approved absence prior to the week of a holiday in which the employee would still be eligible for the holiday pay. He pointed out that it has now been ten years since the negotiation of the last additional holiday.

The union called for removing the 17-day cap on military differential pay, and for a workers’ yearly FMLA entitlement not to be reduced by any time on short-term disability or workers’ comp leave. The company’s John Curtin commented, "FMLA is difficult for some of our operations people to administer. It can be quite a headache," though he also acknowledged that it is not a problem in UE locations. Pat Rafferty told the company, "You can do better than the federal law" in addressing workers’ medical and family crises through FMLA. "You’re too rigid" in how FMLA is administered.

The union proposed increasing the time allowed for stewards to two hours a week (currently 1.5 hours.) Both Pat Rafferty and Bruce Reese, Local 332, pointed out that stewards now deal with much more than just grievances, often assisting employees with such matters as benefits problems, since the company cut back on its own benefits counselors. Similarly, the union called for expanding the application of the eight-hour-per-week allowance for local executive board members’ paid lost time from merely "processing grievances" to any legitimate union business. The union offered examples of other mutually-beneficial union activities within the plants, such as work on safety programs and remedying discrimination and other conflicts between employees.

UE proposed expanding jury duty pay to include subpoenaed participation in other quasi-judicial government proceedings, such as NLRB hearings, and also makeup pay for long distance travel when an employee must testify in a trial far from home. The union proposed a uniform five-day death-in-family leave for all covered relatives.

APPARATUS SHOP PROPOSALS

Steve Tormey then presented UE’s proposals specific to our members in GE Apparatus Service Shops, Locals 1009 (Anaheim, CA) and 1412 (Oakland, CA.) Most of these involved more adequately compensating members working far from home on remote assignments. The union’s proposals included substantial increases in employees’ meal allowances, which are currently well below IRS guidelines, as well as increased allowances for tools and safety shoes. Tormey’s presentation was supplemented by Bob Roberts of the IBEW and Tom O’Heron of the IAM, both of whose unions also represent GE Apparatus Service workers.

UE was represented in Thursday’s bargaining by President John Hovis; Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Klipple; Conference Board Secretary Steve Tormey; Scott Gates and Bruce Reese, Local 332; Marcia Barnhart and John Payne, Local 731; Lynda Leech, Local 618; Eric Snedaker, Local 1010; Pat Rafferty and Frank Fusco, Local 506; and Ed Baran, Local 751. Also participating on the UE bargaining committee were Tom O’Heron of the IAM, Bob Roberts of IBEW, Rudy Gomez of UAW, and Bill Courter of the Steelworkers. Chris Townsend, UE political action director, represented UE at the IUE-CWA bargaining table.

Bargaining will resume Tuesday morning, June 5.