This last week we mostly finalized our opener to the company. There is a subcommittee working on one final non economic article which will hopefully be ready for the April 14th meeting with the company.
I was impressed with the way the Steering Committee came together solidly over this last week. There were many different opinions on proposals that came up, with some looking for radical change and others looking for minor tweaks to the current language. In the end consensus was reached and we found ourselves somewhere in the middle of those two schools of thought. I think this committee was a good representation of the opinions and thoughts of the overall membership. As such I believe the opening proposal represents a good start to the negotiating process. After this proposal is presented to the company it will be available for review by the membership.
A new website has been created by Local 856 in San Bruno CA for the official negotiations updates. The site will begin to be updated when we start negotiating and will be updated throughout negotiations. It can be found here. There will be a link on the blog as well as the website as soon as updates begin. I would like to extend thanks to Business Agent Peter Finn for for his support in creating this very useful tool.
I would also like to thank Local 856 as they hosted this committee for the entire time, which took three weeks over the last couple of months. During that time the Local provided us with lunch each day as well as coffee and doughnuts each morning. They also had to put up with thirty five very loud guys disrupting their operations, and they did this all graciously. Local 210 also helped us by sponsoring three rank and file members on this committee and deserve our thanks as well.
That's all for this week,
Bob
