I would like to thank all of you for your participation in the contract proposal process. There are several hundred forms covering a wide range of deficiencies with the current agreement from a large majority of our local membership. As I'm sure you could guess the great majority of these proposals dealt with pay, pension and benefit issues. There were also many other proposals dealing with grievance time lines, discipline issues, adding a definitions Article, and scope language. Many proposals asked that we start by demanding all concessions made during bankruptcy be returned. I will bring all of these proposals forward to the steering committee next week. The Teamsters break up negotiations into two distinct areas, and they are non-monetary and monetary. A large majority of our proposals fall into the latter category and will be discussed during the second half of negotiations. In addition to proposals from the floor there are also quite a few proposals from the committee office. I'm working up a more detailed report of all of the proposals and will try to post it next week or most likely the last week of January because of the limited amount of computer time I will have as a result of traveling. I would expect the steering committee proposals will be posted similar to the CAL team on the Teamsters website. Here is the Continental proposal.
For MM this week I talked with Don about the hangar and it still looks like they are moving forward with their plans. I asked Don if anyone from legislative affairs had asked if there was money available, State or Federal, to offset the initial cost of construction of the hangar and he said he would look into it. I also asked our Local if we might be able do the same thing on our side. George Miranda e-mailed me tonight and we will discuss it further next week. The company was going to deny GQ tests to three individuals because they felt time lines had been violated. Labor relations felt differently and told the company to review the files of these three individuals to see if they had the background that would afford them the right to test. There were a couple of issues with the new transfers regarding off station training that I believe were resolved but I will check on Monday. If any of you have rooms to rent I think there are still a couple folks looking for places.
For GQ this week one of the MM guys passed the test and will be reporting to that shop around the 26th. There was an answer on the bid form grievance and it was denied. I'm going to talk to Bob Luciano in San Fran next week about this issue to get direction moving forward.
In PV this week I received a denied grievance on the vacation rules. As I agreed to the rule that was grieved I don't believe it can be moved forward into the second step. It is my opinion that this was a very good set of rules for the shop, but I have asked Bob to look at this issue.
I'm told the overseas outsourcing issue will be added to the Teamsters Take Action page soon. For those of you that read the 258 page stimulus package, you did not see our issue in there. This is because what is on the internet is the spending package from the Appropriations Committee and not the full bill. Here is a copy if you have not seen it. The Speaker should add our provision as the bill hits the floor of the House. Jack Albertine provided that information when I asked him after not seeing our provision in the bill.
Both the company and the Union have provided briefs to the Arbitrator regarding the twenty percent grievance. They can both be found here about midway down the page. I know it's a long dry read but there is alot of good information in them.
That's all for this week,
Bob
