you might have missed...

Friday, September 27, 2013

Another long wait

the vote is in on the CenturyLink contract, but not counted.  that doesn't happen until deadline passes for locals to report their totals, at 1700 mdt.

I may have been the only one in the building to have voted for it, so the second shoe could drop pretty quickly.

if ratified, families on the CTL plan take a drubbing.  singles, a trim, not a haircut.  there are givebacks in the health care, which are allegedly to be made up by annual bonuses about equal to the loss.  however, the bonuses are taxed at income rate, so it's still a loss.  field tech categories actually get guaranteed minimum percentages of the work, which should be a win for the outside crews.

but negotiations went nowhere, and finally, the lawyers on both sides tossed out silliness to get an agreement for voting.  I am of course not providing much for detail, because it's not my place.  we did much worse than ATT did in their contract.

and so, with projects always ready to start and training and stuff, I wait.  yes, that stuff stays inside.  I am on overtime lists for the weekend, too, and so my 3-day weekend is not being planned and used efficiently.

that's life in the big city.

so if it's ratified, I have savings I can pile into some bills.

if not ratified, the company has the right I'm told to implement any old damn thing they want.  they could pat the tentative agreement and say "take it."  they could say "well, two bucks a day and all the abuse you can eat."

the union national office has the ability to say "shove that, we're out."  they also have the ability to restart negotiations, say they'll work under the imposition and allow it to be binding, or whatever.  they went into negotiations 14 months ago with a strike vote under their arms.

this could also be a stepping stone.  negotiators have been going to every local they can schedule saying there are a lot of little bitty COs within our 14 state territory that have the ability to come into our contract, which is better than anything they're working under as former United/Sprint/Embarq offices.  that would substantially increase bargaining power in 3 years.

lot of nervous-sounding low talk in the hallways Thursday.

No comments:

Post a Comment