Regional Bargaining Report # 66
Friday, April 29, 2016
While the CWA Mid Atlantic Bargaining Committee was meeting with the company
this morning questioning the Company’s latest proposal, CWA members across the region were receiving overnight packages from the Company. Sent through a NON-UNION mail carrier, a summary document attempts to justify the Company’s latest version of its retrogressive demands.
The cost of this mailing alone exceeds the total cuts the Company is attempting to make in the Tuition Assistance Plan. This act clearly demonstrates the
lengths this greedy corporation will go to chip away at every employee benefit.
Every proposal Verizon attempted to justify through its shady car salesman videos and half-truth emails has been questioned and explored to the nth degree. The Company’s pat response has been it needs to reduce the costs of the business. When we explore further we either get blank stares or "I don't knows". After 10 months of bargaining and 17 days of a very effective strike, the Company is clearly starting to wilt.
Not one of the Company’s proposals can they defend as a need. This round of bargaining has been about the Company taking on the Union members that make a significant part of the profits for the mother corporation. This is about a Greedy Corporation.
The Union and the Company are scheduled to meet again this afternoon.
Bargaining is a two way street and if Verizon truly wants things to get back to normal, they will have to demonstrate that philosophy at the table!!
*April 29, 2016 - Special addendum to the latest bargaining report****
Many of you have asked why we didn't take the deal offered from the company yesterday. The following is the reason. It is a list of bullet points put together by the bargaining team.
Specifics from yesterday's Proposal
· Job Security
Job security would remain in place for those hired prior to 2003 provided the union agrees to increase the mileage people can be moved from 35 to 50 miles, and force transfers requiring home relocation, permanent transfers requiring home relocation and the company wants complete control over where and when they offer a Special Enhanced Income Plan, which will lead to those jobs being performed by contractors
· Significant retiree healthcare increases
· New hires would not receive any retiree healthcare at all.
· 11 Centers are still on the list to be closed, shipping people up to 150 miles away from their current location.
· Freezing the Pensions, tying the 2016 Mortality Table to the Pension fund from this point on
· Changes to the healthcare plan, including deductibles
· Introducing a Formulary to the healthcare. The company will decide which drugs you can get based on their cost, regardless of their effectiveness or your doctor’s recommendation
· Call sharing that does not promise to maintain existing centers and gives the company complete freedom to route calls however they choose
· Increasing the flexibility of their ability to send calls to contractors, which positions our members for a surplus or layoff
· There will be no Corporate Profit Sharing in 2016, paid out in 2017
· There will be no retro pay for the last year of working without a contract
· Company is trying to sell this agreement by offering 400 jobs without any promises of keeping current levels of employees
· Even though the company has modified sending people out of town for 60 days, the intent is clear to be able to have a traveling work force in the states that are clustered together
Issues the Union has brought up
· They have not addressed any of the forced overtime issues at all
· They have not addressed our issues with Electronic Monitoring and Evaluative Observations