Guild and Post representatives met on March 27.
Management provided additional detail used to compare current call center costs to outside bids received on the inbound and outbound work. The union’s bargaining committee is working on a counter proposal that will be based on the retention of that work. The proposal will be presented during the next bargaining session scheduled for April 10.
Management presented a proposal to eliminate the positions of Building Maintenance Mechanic, Machinist and Electrician I, II and III. Under their proposal:
- The eliminated positions would be replaced with one position titled Production Maintenance Technician.
- The number of positions would be reduced from 20 to 16.
- Current employees would need to apply for the new position.
- Current employees who are hired would be grandfathered at their current pay rate.
- Current employees who are hired would be placed on a 90 day probation period that could be extended 45 days.
- Those employees who don’t apply or are not selected for the position and those who don’t make it through probation would be paid severance.
- New hires in the position would start at $23 an hour and top scale would be $25 an hour.
The union’s bargaining committee will seek out input from affected employees to develop a counter proposal. The issue will not be addressed at the next scheduled meeting.
Kathy Rudolph
Sam Johnson
Maureen Shively
Michelle Miller
Tom Peterson
Laurie Faliano
Paulette Shrefler
Tony Mulligan
Concerning the above proposal, it’s obvious the company wants to pick and choose whom the final 16 will be. Since seniority was thrown out the window when the maintenance mechanics became machinists, I propose we go back to the original job classifications of machinist, maintenance mechanic, TSD and building maintenance. Toss out seniority except for vacation and mark ups and let the chips fall where they will. This will give the company what it wants, save the best workers and avoid pay issues concerning the wage differences between TSD and machinists.
If they are insistent on creating a production maintenance technician, all remaining members who were not in TSD should get a gradual wage increase to bring them up to the current TSD scale.
Additionally, guaranteed jobs for the last 16 wouldn’t hurt either.