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July, 2005
Bedford, IN 47421
Phone #279-1113
Home Page
www.iue-cwalocal84907.com
LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL
NEWS
UNION MEETING
Our next regularly scheduled Union meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 20th, 2005 at the U.A.W. Hall,
1411 “H” Street, Bedford, IN.
Meeting Times:
Night Shift: 1:00 am
(TUESDAY, after work)
Day Shift: 4:00 pm
Midnight shift may attend either of the above meetings.
NOMINATIONS FOR OFFICERS WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE JULY MEETING
OFFICES AT STAKE
President, Vice President, Recording Secretary, Financial Secretary, Day and Night Chief Stewards, Health and Safety Officer, Sergeant-at-Arms and 2 Delegates.
VOTING WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE SEPTEMBER UNION MEETING
Voting Times:
NIGHT SHIFT: September 6th, 2005 from 10:00 pm to 2:00 am. (Tuesday after work.)
DAY SHIFT: September 7th, 2005 from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm.
VOTING WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE LAWRENCE COUNTY FAIR GROUNDS, HIGHWAY 50 WEST.
In the case of a tie, the run-off election will be held on September 10th, 2005 at the Lawrence County
Fair Grounds, U.S. Route 50 West, Bedford, IN, 47421. Voting times will
be from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm for all shifts.
CHANGE IN LENGTH OF TERM
ELECTED OFFICERS WILL SERVE FROM OCTOBER 1ST, 2005 THROUGH DECEMBER 31ST, 2008.
The elected Officers will serve a Three-year term plus 3 months. The additional 3 months added to the term will bring Local 907’s Constitution up to CWA Standards.
From the desk of the President
I would like to give you an update on the COLA grievance. One extension was requested. That request came from the company’s attorneys. The Arbitrator gave the company a deadline of June 17th, 2005 to submit a post hearing brief. I received a report on the post hearing brief on June 24th. I am expecting to have a ruling from the Arbitrator during the first week of July, but that is not a guarantee. As soon as the ruling is given to me, I will share it with the rest of the membership. Keep an eye on the Union bulletin boards. The results will be posted there and in the Union offices.
In Solidarity,
Earl Wilson
President
IUE-CWA Local 907
From the Desk of the
Vice-President
Co-pays
Co-pays for the doctor’s office and a nurse-practitioner visit are $20.00 or $30.00 for a specialist. If you are being charged more than this amount, then something is wrong. Just this month, we were informed that someone had been charged $40.00. This is not the correct amount! You should not be paying any more than the $20 or $30 co-pay. If you have been in the past or are in this situation in the future, you need to let us know. Bring in your EOB (Explanation of Benefits) to myself or Dave Baker.
Prescription Plan Co-pay
Our prescription co-pay for a 30-day supply for generic brand is $7.00. If a generic brand is not yet available and there is only a brand name drug, then your co-pay will be either $15.00 or $30.00, depending on whether it is a formulary or non-formulary drug. If you are paying more than these amounts for your prescriptions, contact your pharmacy and ask why larger amounts are being charged. Your doctor may need to contact the prescription company and ask them to waive any charges for a brand name verses a generic. Your doctor’s office can call the prescription company for necessary forms.
In Solidarity,
Tom Jones
Vice-President
IUE-CWA Local 907
Prescription Drug Info
Some prescription drugs need prior-authorization from your physician for payment by PharamaCare, which is our prescription company. If you need a form to take with you to the doctor’s office, these are available in either Tom Jones’ or Dave Baker’s offices. It is important for you to know that prior authorization forms MUST be completed
and faxed by your physician to PharamaCare. They will NOT accept these forms from anyone else. So, please remember that your doctor MUST fax the prior authorization form in order for your prescription to be paid.
Address updates!
During the last week of work before shutdown, I mailed a notice of upcoming Officer elections to every member. The reason I had to do this was because, according to our Constitution, there are two (2) choices to notify members of upcoming elections. The object is to reach each and every member, regardless of their work status. (Example: On medical leave more than 90 days and off the rolls.) One choice is to publish the notice in the CWA News. The other choice is to mail the notice to each member at their last known address. I mailed the notice to CWA News before the publishing deadline, but it did not appear in the June issue. Upon investigation, it was found that it “got lost somewhere”. They did not receive it. Therefore, it was necessary for me to mail the notice to each member. If you did not receive your notice, or if your address was not correct, PLEASE, notify me so I can update the records. I noticed that some of the Lawrence County addresses were not updated. They were still rural route addresses. Lawrence County no longer uses rural routes. I know I will be getting most of those back as not deliverable. If you did not receive your notice, or if your address was incorrect, please take the time to write down your correct address, give it to your Shop Steward and ask him or her to put it in my mailbox. Name changes can be handled in the same manner. Thank you in advance for helping make sure I have the correct information.
In Solidarity,
Debbie Daughrity
Recording Secretary
IUE-CWA Local 907
More retirees say good-bye to Visteon life
June 30th was the last working day for 24 more retirees. Twenty-six others accepted the buyouts, but were not eligible for retirement. Those who retired are:
Judy Hamilton, 318-2, Sherry Cummings, 318-2, Shirley Mosier, 318-2, Beverly Miller, 318-3, Carole Kent, 318-3, Janet Bellush, 318-3, Peggy Busick, 318-3, Stan Guthrie, 316-3, Polly Flynn, 305-2, Brenda Luchauer, 307-2, Beverly Nichols, 305-2, John Buttz, 348-2, Sandy Slinkard, 332-2, Linda Brown, 312-2, Carolyn Phillips, 332-3, Zeb Rush, 332-3, Maurice Beuchler, 365-2, David Grogan, 367-1, Shirley Young, Lula McGowen, Beverly Miller, Peggy Nikirk, 302-3, Janice Rodgers, Kenneth Deckard and Lela Hackney.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough room in the newsletter for pictures of all the retirees. We hope they all enjoy their “leisure days”! They are envied by many of us and will be missed by all.
United default a threat to all workers
The following is taken from an article written by Robert V. Callahan and published in the Miami Herald’s Opinion column on May 21st, 2005. It makes one think about our government: the power they have and the creative ways they use to give more money to the big corporations, while taking away from the working-class people like you and me.
Last week’s United Airlines pension default reveals serious trouble for all middle-class Americans with pensions. Most of us believe that pension plans are sacrosanct. Untouchable. Safe and secure. Protected by a beneficent government and tight laws. The United case shows otherwise. United used the law to dump more than $9 billion in pension liabilities on the taxpayers. No one in government stopped them. Here’s how it happened>
The Railway Labor Act controls airline negotiations. It mandates that all negotiations be done in good faith. Then contracts are agreed on, companies must abide by them and unions must maintain peace. But United Airlines, despite three massive concessionary contracts with significant give-backs, simply did not make their required pension contributions. Just didn’t do it.
One would think there would be a safeguard. There’s supposed to be. It’s called ERISA, for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. In the 1970’s, companies put worthless stock, undervalued real estate and IOU’s into pension funds. No one knew this until retirees, counting on pensions, wound up with nothing. ERISA was supposed to prevent this kind of abuse. Turns out, however, that there was an “out” that allowed companies to continue evasive practices. The loophole this time is with the IRS. A company can legally avoid making mandate pension contributions – with no penalty. In fact, any company can do this up to three times, again with no penalty. When contributions are not made, the pension formulas simply freeze. Nothing happens to the company. If the employees in the plan are unionized, there is nothing the union can do.
Bad faith bargaining
This is how United ran up a $9.3 billion pension deficit and triggered the largest pension default in U.S. history.
· First, it bargained in bad faith and used the Railway Labor Act to protect itself.
· Then, it used the IRS to avoid pension contributions.
· Finally, it turned to the bankruptcy courts to basically wipe out any liability.
In bankruptcy court, fiscal protective procedures supercede all other obligations. So nothing was in place to protect the 120, 000 United employee pensions. The same employees who, despite sweeping wage reductions, kept United at the top of the airline industry were simply robbed. And there was nothing they could do.
This was all done strategically, with forethought. United’s actions exhibit a thorough yet malicious understanding of the controlling laws and regulations. United’s team knew that they could simply avoid pension contributions and then use the system, the law, the courts to transfer their mess and their obligation to American taxpayers. The Railway Labor Act kept the work force in place, working. The IRS code allowed United to default on pension payments with no penalties. ERISA was insufficiently protective to stop the strategy. Then the bankruptcy courts allowed United to just walk away from all its promises.
It is a challenge to lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum. Whether one’s issue is social agenda or business practice, this United Airlines debacle is the largest, scariest, most immoral and threatening public act to rumble through our society in years.
A Big Thank You
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members for allowing me to be your Sgt. At Arms for the past nine years. I wish you all well.
Thanks and God Bless
David M. Grogan
Steward’s Duty of Fair Representation
Some information about grievances and the laws that govern unions:
Most Shop Stewards take their duties very seriously, as well they should. They understand that they are their co-workers’ first line of defense against mistreatment by their employer and they understand the Steward’s responsibility, by law, to fairly represent bargaining unit workers to the best of their ability. The Steward must be able to draw a line between their responsibility to fairly represent the aggrieved worker and their automatic, no-questions-asked representation of every worker who thinks he or she has a grievance.
The fact is, the union does not have to file or pursue a grievance each and every time bargaining unit member thinks it should! The Steward who does that is actually doing damage to himself, his co-workers and the union.
The law does require a union to equally and fairly represent all members of the bargaining unit. This means that when making grievance decisions a union or steward should not consider a bargaining unit member’s race, gender, nationality, age, religion, politics, unpopularity, union membership, or status as a dues paying member. But the simple act of deciding not to file or pursue a grievance does not mean that there has been an automatic violation of the law’s “Duty of Fair Representation” (DFR) requirement.
This duty to fairly represent every worker is a requirement under the U.S. National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). But the law does not require stewards to file a grievance every time a bargaining unit member complains. A union does not have to file a grievance if it has a rational, good-faith belief that the grievance lacks merit. Nor does a union have to take ridiculous or impossible positions to argue for grievances that lack merit.
For sure, there is nothing to stop a bargaining unit member from filing a charge with the National Labor Relations Board claiming he or she was treated unfairly because the union failed to file a grievance, withdrew a grievance, settled a grievance for less than the member thought right, didn’t prepare well for the arbitration or even mishandled the arbitration. But to win a DFR case a member must prove not just that the union made a mistake, but that the mistake was due to personal hostility or political animosity. And it’s not enough to show the union was negligent, inept or exercised poor judgement: such actions had to be the result of a personal effort or campaign to deny the bargaining unit member his or her rights.
