Brother and Sister Members of Local 726,

If you will recall at the last union meeting on April 19, 2006, the present Executive Board was asked what kind of raise we were going to get. They’re reply was “We do not know because they haven’t negotiated their raise yet.” It’s funny, because if you look at the scanned letter of 731’s bargaining agreement, it clearly shows March 1, 2006 on the letter. Maybe they just didn’t want to tell us what we were really getting for a raise at that Union Meeting because they would have seen how angry the Union Members would have been.

Apparently, we are going to receive 45 cents an hour which based off of a years earnings, if you do the math you will notice that it works out to be approximately only $936 a year. Once again the present Executive Board negotiated another great contract with another great raise. We were told Health and Welfare is to receive the rest. If we are basing our contract off of 731’s contract, Health and Welfare gets 65 cents, pension gets 60 cents and Joint Council 25 gets 5 cents. So, instead of our pension getting 60 cents, Health and Welfare gets it instead. The reason why is because we contribute to our own pension and the outside does not.

Besides the money we are contributing now out of our raise to Health and Welfare (see box marked MEMOS and look under BENEFITS). They will be raising the amount you pay by a certain percentage that’s in your category of payment. So really it is like giving twice to Health and Welfare. They also raised the amounts on your co pays for prescriptions.

We from FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE are very disappointed and upset with the raises and the whole contract in general. It is like being on a sinking ship without a life preserver. With your help and the help of all our Members we can change OUR future by electing a Board of competent people who have our best interests in hand and that would be the FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE SLATE.