A note from our President
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March 20, 2009
Open Letter to the Membership
I was on a conference call with our District 9 Bargaining Team today, brothers and sisters it was not pretty. Answers were given to some questions submitted from the membership; one of them was “Why isn’t there any good news on the Bargaining Reports”? The answer was because there is no good news to report from the Company’s bargaining team!
Some in our membership are asking why doesn’t CWA just accept our current contract with some modest improvements? The answer is that the company is not remotely interested in offering up our current contract for any consideration; instead what they are offering is a long list of “take backs” for a contract so substandard that it would make a non-union Comcast worker feel like they got robbed!!! Basically the company wants to tear up our contract and start over.
If their healthcare proposal wasn’t so insulting, it would be a bad joke. The lowlights are not just monthly premium co-pays, but also outrageous yearly deductibles that range from $2,000 to $5,000. Att’s explanation for this is, in order to lower health care costs Nationwide, they will make going to the doctor so expensive for us, that we won’t use it at all! So if you or your family gets sick or injured, the company’s response will be “sucks to be you pal” you shouldn’t have gotten sick and your good health is your responsibility and don’t be late for work or we’ll slap you with a Code of Conduct violation.
In addition, the company also wants take backs on; job security, force balancing/ rearrangements, and “awarding” overtime regardless of a list. Also they want the ability to move regular full time employees (senior) into appendix E as terms, with loss of retirement benefits.
In closing, all I can conclude from the company’s position is that they don’t care about our best efforts to help make this company not only profitable but the best. They don’t care about our futures or our families. This isn’t “ma Bell” anymore.
In Unity,
Rick DeLao
:UnderConstruction