DONE!

We finished up at about 9:30 last night....2%/year for 2 years...that's the best we could get, REALLY. Dick tried alot of things, but nothing doing.
All in all not too many changes.
Voting on Monday 7am@Wilder, 4@Comerford, 7:30@Shelburne.


They left healthcare, sick time and on-call alone. that was HUGE

It never seems to end

Round and round we go over 1/4 of percents.......

Back at the table

The Federal Mediator is here and we are back at the table hoping to get this contract finalized by the end of today.  Looks like if we are successful, we will vote on Monday the 13^th.

Another rant from Ben A.

Another quite thought provoking post from my friend Ben, you need to read this. http://www.facebook.com/notes/ben-alexander/whos-abandoning-whom-a-memo-to-my-fellow-obama-voters/470558542935

Talks break down

Done for the night...things not totally settledyet.  We will hold meetings hopefully on Tuesday to inform the members.  Too many details to cover here.

Down to the wire!

Contract extension almost at expiration.  Down to just talking about wage increases and on-call compensation.  Hopefully it ends soon!  It's been a long day.

Back at it!

At least we are talking again…PROgressing slow, but PROgress none the less.

New Day

Well a new day has dawned, some positive movement yesterday, but that was most likely due to the mediator from FMCS being there.  We worked until 10 pm and are fairly close to getting this thing done.
Wages have been discussed and we will see some more movement there(hopefully).  On-call pay is also a big issue.
Maybe they will be in before 10 this morning.

Movement

Company is offering 1% for two of the years, 1/2% for the other 2.  Seems they are willing to leave healthcare alone!  For now anyway.

And they’re off !!!

So, the company came back to the table this morning at 8:20 am. In attendance was a Federal Mediator to make sure thing progress. We were informed of the state of the US economy and how great of an employer that TransCanada is. Of course, we at the IBEW Local 486 believe that we have had a little something to do with the success of this company. But so far the company does not believe that a general wage increase is warranted. They do stand by there desire that the employees pay a bigger portion of the health insurance cost. This seems to be a net negative for the members.

More later.