June 28, 2008
Union Insulted by Con Ed's Latest "Asinine" Offer
Thousands of Con Ed employees may be striking tomorrow, if the utility keeps up their act. Joe Flaherty, spokesman for the Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America, said of Con Ed's 0.5% base raise, "They want us to strike, no doubt about it. Half a percent, followed by 1% in the years after that, is just asinine."
Flaherty says the union made their wage proposal on June 18, "After 12 today (noon yesterday), nine days later and with 36 hours to go, they gave us a proposal. That means they're not showing any serious intention to bargain." He says his members are ready to picket various Con Ed properties, including offices and substations. The union has also filed an "Unfair Labor Practice" charge with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming Con Ed is "bargaining in bad faith" (PDF).
However, Con Ed tells the Journal News, "We continue to negotiate in good faith with the union leadership and are working to agree on a new contract that is fair and equitable for our employees. In the interests of respecting the process, we will not discuss details of our talks." The contract is up early tomorrow; the last time Con Ed employees went on strike was in 1983.
Photograph of abandoned glove by Rachel Pincus on Flickr
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0.5% should cover it...
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They should fuckin strike. Those guys are out there in the sweltering heat all summer fixin shit from the late 1800's. More power to 'em.
And anytime there's a strike some rich yuppie cocksucker complains about selfishness....I don't wanna hear any of that.
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"more power to 'em?" Was that intended? LOL!!!
I say, strike. Why is it, all the CEO's are getting multimillion dollar bonuses and pay, yet expect the workers to settle for peanuts in this country?
You know, remembering history, it seems that a lot of revolutions got started, including our own, when the middle class got squeezed out of wages, food, got taxed to the eyebrows, and the upper class got all the perks. Its rather scary.
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Why is Con Ed a private company? This needs to be an agency run by the city. Electricity is as vital as the police force, the fire dept. and the teachers.
Since they AREN'T a city agency, STRIKE!!! Fuck that 22 million bonus when the company is in shambles. What happened in Astoria and Harlem a few years ago was a crime.
Just in time for summer!
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Just remember, when power goes out in your neighborhood and there's nobody to fix it for a day or two because they're out on strike, you told them to go.
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0.5% raise??
The Union is right: ConEd wants a strike.
ConEd Management are staffed by MORONS (Hey, the management can work for the MTA). The bad publicity from a strike with such a joke of an offer will result in more people (like me) cutting away from ConEd.
Nuts...
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so, like, what happens if this intense weather starts knocking out power tomorrow and they're striking?
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Whoever heard of a union that didn't want raises and whoever heard of management that didn't want to give 'em a nickel? It's the oldest story in the book and that's why utilities need to be taken from the greedy stockholders and nationalized.
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I know a guy who is a wire welder for con ed. Makes 75 an hour, double OT on weekends, quad overtme on a holiday weekend. Who needs a raise when you punch in 8 hours and only do one hour of actual work?
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Sorry poopmast, you information is erroneous. If the the guy you know does welding, he may be a Mechanic A or a splicer or similar (there is no welding title per se). Assuming he is at the top of the title he makes in the range of $32 - $38 per hr. My source is the 2004-2008 Collective Bargaining Contract. There are only a few union jobs that go as far as the low $40s for hourly pay and they tend to be less labor jobs and more like Engineering designers or Commercial Service Reps. Also the Company pays no more than 1.5 times for Holiday Pay. They Contract calls it 2.5 times but that includes the paid holiday + 1.5 times the labor rate. There is no QUADRATE!