OFS Bargaining Report #8

OFS Bargaining Report – Day 7

Bargaining for Day 7 opened at 10:50AM.

The meeting opened with the Union passing a counter to the Company's counter on Article 5 – Union-Management Relations.  The Union put language back in that is important to our Stewards, Union Agents and the Membership that the Company had struck in their counter.

The Company passed their counter to Article 4 – Union Representation and accepted the Union's last proposed language, and we were able to Tentatively Agree (TA) our first proposal!  But unfortunately, at this rate of agreement it will take us around 175 days to complete the Agreement.  Bill Bates did thank the Company for the first TA and told them we look forward to the opportunity to be able to TA many more.

The Company then passed their counter to Union proposal Article 8 – Occupational Job Classifications, in which the Company again reverted back to the process of countering by eliminating 80% of the Union's proposal.  The Union will take the Company's counter under serious advisement and will surely have a counter to their elimination of the Union's proposed language.

For the next item we ask all our Members to please sit down before reading.

The Company passed their first proposal for active Represented Employee health care plan.  Their proposal will increase employee medical premiums from between $5-$25 to between $140-$377 – an increase of 13-28 times the current levels.  Their proposal also included doubling a number of copays and deductibles and in some cases increasing them by as much as $100-$250.  Bill's response was to hand the Company a copy of our newest action sticker "Cutting Our Health Care Is A Sick Idea.  Health Care For All."  The Company gave the sticker back to Bill.  Bill told the Company there was no way anyone of us from the Union can go back to our Members and try to sell the Company's Health Care proposal to them and hope to survive such a meeting.  The meeting ended at 1:00PM.  The next bargaining meeting is scheduled for 1:00PM Wednesday, May 17th.

The Bargaining Team wants to advise everyone we will be holding a STRIKE Vote in the next few days and urge ALL our Members to turn out and vote.