By now many of you have received a communication from Fred Stiers
concerning the breakdown of the negotiations. We received a copy of the draft
of this letter Tom Hutton had sent to Fred Stiers when we met with the company
to go over the final offer.
I agree with Tom Hutton, we are also very disappointed with where
we stand after the many weeks of negotiations. I agree the "interest based
process" worked very well in 1996. Since the company is facing almost
exactly the same Union team as 1996 (Leon Royer is now chairman, but Mike Ayers
has joined us in negotiations) I wonder where the difference could be.
As far as the company's statement that the offer they have given
us contains 4 million in base wage increases over the life of the contract,
this is the same increases negotiated with all oil company's covered by
PACE's "oil bargaining program". While these are fair wage
adjustments for this contract, they don't put the company at any disadvantage
against the competition. They are certainly no reason to try and attack
multiple issues in our contract.
While the company's "final offer" does have improvements
dealing with areas of vacation, funeral leave, operator training, and backing
out of discipline steps, these items in no way balance out the issues we still
take exception to. The main issues we still see are the 5/4 elimination of 2/3
shift, corporate substance abuse policy, and mandatory standby/callout for
mechanical.
Many of the operators attending the recent meetings at the union
hall have told us they are not pleased with the company's decision to force
them from their shift of choice, to the company's shift of choice. This issue
was handled during the interest based negotiations process. Like the operators,
the committee can not see why this should be such an issue with the company.
The 2/3 shift is one of the original choices provided when operations went on
the 12 hour shift.
Do not be misled by the statements in the company's letter about
the corporate drug policy!!!!! Our disagreement with the policy is not the
"zero tolerance", but the fact that the policy attacks two of the
principles union foundations have been built on. 1. The right to negotiate the
change of policy's in our contracts, and 2. The right to represent members who
are wronged. These principles bore to the center of unionism. Do not be led to
believe that the corporate policy gives the union the right to arbitrate to
ensure that test results are correct. All the policy gives the union the right
to arbitrate is the "chain of custody" in the sample procedure.
On the subject of mandatory callout, I'm happy to see the company
give credit to the employee's who have covered the company's callouts. It's a
credit to these craftsmen that they have been able to cover the callouts, even
though nothing seems to keep the number of calls from reaching new heights
continuously. So far in 2002 the callouts have been 964. Callouts for 2001 were
1462. Do the math, this is a 25% increase in callouts so far this year over
last year. The union committee approached negotiations with the intention of
trying to address the problem of callout coverage. We offered many ways of
dealing with the company's supposed problem, with nothing being acceptable to
the company. We feel since craftsmen are covering 88% of callouts currently,
that a desire for 90% coverage is not what gets us at odds. Since the company
refused to give us any control of sky rocketing callouts (except good
intentions) we feel the bottom line is they want a new scheduling tool!
If the company's surprised the union members would consider a
strike maybe they should listen to what's going on around them. It was
certainly mentioned at the negotiation table, as well as everywhere I saw
people talking in the refinery.