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Pace-Setting Early Pacts at SBC Companies Provide Strong Wage and Pension Gains, Address Job Securit
Tentative early settlements at Southwestern Bell and Pacific Telesis call for substantial wage and pension gains and strengthened employment security for the 76,000 CWA-represented workers at the SBC Communications companies.
Setting the pace for this year’s tele-communications bargaining round covering nearly 400,000 workers altogether, the contracts also addressed such key concerns in the industry as forced overtime, growing pressures on service representatives, the need for more job flexibility and training opportunities.
The key issue of cardcheck recognition at new entities, to help give members access to growth jobs under union standards, was already achieved last year at SBC, and has resulted in organizing about 1,000 new workers. At every present and future business, SBC recognizes CWA when more than 50 percent of the workers in a unit sign cards showing they want union representation.
CWA President Morton Bahr says the company and the union are now working to extend cardcheck beyond the geographic regions of Southwestern Bell and Pactel to areas where SBC owns cellular companies operating in some cases as Cellular One.
District 6 Vice President Ben Turn and District 9 Vice President Tony Bixler noted that a key to the early talks — settlement came four months before the August 8 contract expiration — was SBC’s assurance that it had no interest in seeking concessions from workers.
Settlement Highlights
Bixler and Turn reported base wage increases compounding to more than 11 percent in both settlements over the 32-month contract term, along with an increase in the company contribution/ match to the 401(k) savings plan to 80 percent (was 66 2/3 percent), and improved team performance awards.
Because of the shorter than usual term of the agreements, the wage payout actually comes to about 12 percent as compared to 36 months. The pacts go into effect with expiration of the current agreements in August 1998 and run through April 1, 2001. Members will receive cash bonuses upon ratification of $500 at Southwestern and $300 at the Pactel companies, Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell.
Both settlements call for significant job upgrades affecting several hundred workers.
Meeting a key union objective this year, SBC agreed to substantial pension improvements. At Pacific Telesis, pension hikes average 11.4 percent, and at Southwestern, workers won a 9.2 percent increase along with a new 100 percent lump sum payout option.
Both settlements include a range of improvements in the medical plan and dental and vision care plans, with the addition at Pactel of domestic partner health care coverage for the first time.
The settlements provide new limits on forced overtime, additional restrictions on subcontracting of work, and assurances of increased hiring to help ease pressure on workers who have been squeezed because of heavy downsizing in past years coupled with rapid growth of telephone business.
The pacts call for joint programs to tackle unreasonable quotas, adherence policies and other pressures plaguing service reps, along with a moratorium on discipline while these problems are being addressed.
Among other gains are increased flexibility in scheduling vacations and personal leave, expanded training opportunities, and significant improvements in grievance and arbitration procedures.
The agreements, subject to member ratification by mail ballot, cover some 35,000 employees of Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell and 41,000 at Southwestern Bell.
Setting the pace for this year’s tele-communications bargaining round covering nearly 400,000 workers altogether, the contracts also addressed such key concerns in the industry as forced overtime, growing pressures on service representatives, the need for more job flexibility and training opportunities.
The key issue of cardcheck recognition at new entities, to help give members access to growth jobs under union standards, was already achieved last year at SBC, and has resulted in organizing about 1,000 new workers. At every present and future business, SBC recognizes CWA when more than 50 percent of the workers in a unit sign cards showing they want union representation.
CWA President Morton Bahr says the company and the union are now working to extend cardcheck beyond the geographic regions of Southwestern Bell and Pactel to areas where SBC owns cellular companies operating in some cases as Cellular One.
District 6 Vice President Ben Turn and District 9 Vice President Tony Bixler noted that a key to the early talks — settlement came four months before the August 8 contract expiration — was SBC’s assurance that it had no interest in seeking concessions from workers.
Settlement Highlights
Bixler and Turn reported base wage increases compounding to more than 11 percent in both settlements over the 32-month contract term, along with an increase in the company contribution/ match to the 401(k) savings plan to 80 percent (was 66 2/3 percent), and improved team performance awards.
Because of the shorter than usual term of the agreements, the wage payout actually comes to about 12 percent as compared to 36 months. The pacts go into effect with expiration of the current agreements in August 1998 and run through April 1, 2001. Members will receive cash bonuses upon ratification of $500 at Southwestern and $300 at the Pactel companies, Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell.
Both settlements call for significant job upgrades affecting several hundred workers.
Meeting a key union objective this year, SBC agreed to substantial pension improvements. At Pacific Telesis, pension hikes average 11.4 percent, and at Southwestern, workers won a 9.2 percent increase along with a new 100 percent lump sum payout option.
Both settlements include a range of improvements in the medical plan and dental and vision care plans, with the addition at Pactel of domestic partner health care coverage for the first time.
The settlements provide new limits on forced overtime, additional restrictions on subcontracting of work, and assurances of increased hiring to help ease pressure on workers who have been squeezed because of heavy downsizing in past years coupled with rapid growth of telephone business.
The pacts call for joint programs to tackle unreasonable quotas, adherence policies and other pressures plaguing service reps, along with a moratorium on discipline while these problems are being addressed.
Among other gains are increased flexibility in scheduling vacations and personal leave, expanded training opportunities, and significant improvements in grievance and arbitration procedures.
The agreements, subject to member ratification by mail ballot, cover some 35,000 employees of Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell and 41,000 at Southwestern Bell.