IUE-CWA Reaches Tentative Agreement with General Electric

IUE-CWA members rally outside their GE plant in Salem, Va. IUE and other unions at GE reached a tentative contract with the company this week.

After four weeks of intense negotiations, IUE-CWA has reached tentative national agreements for about 16,000 workers at General Electric. Ratification votes are expected to be held next week.

The four-year packages, bargained jointly by the unions' Coordinated Bargaining Committee, include gains in wages and pensions, while holding increases in workers' share of health care costs to 2.5 percentage points.

IUE-CWA represents the majority of workers, with more than 8,000 members at GE. "I congratulate our negotiating committee on working hard to reach an agreement that addresses critical issues for both our union members and the company," IUE-CWA President Jim Clark said.

Describing the talks as "hard-fought negotiations," IUE-CWA GE Conference Board Chairman Bob Santamoor said, "We've made significant strides from where we started to reaching a deal that we can bring back to the members. The contract also offers a special early retirement window for long-service employees, a key issue for our union members."

Regarding health care, the agreements call for hourly GE workers to pay 24 percent of the cost of their coverage, up from the 21.5 percent they have been paying since 2007. Salaried GE workers began paying 35 percent of their health care costs last year.

If ratified, the new contract will give workers a $5,000 cash payment in July, followed by wage increases of 2.25 percent next June, 2.5 percent in 2013 and 3 percent in 2014. Workers would also receive eight cost-of-living increases worth $1.13 per hour over the life of the contract.

In addition to across-the-board pension improvements, Clark said the company is making an unprecedented commitment that it will not propose any pension plan freezes in the 2015 negotiations.

The contract also includes improvements in job security language, retiree health care, vacation, sick and personal time, vision and dental plans, and disability benefits.

The proposals are under review this week by each union's negotiating committee. The IUE-CWA committee voted Wednesday to send the agreement to members for ratification, which must be complete by June 30.