Tentative Pact for 600 at Rochester Frontier

About 600 Local 1170 members working for Frontier Telephone of Rochester, N.Y., will see a 2-percent wage increase and an annual 4.5 percent performance bonus in each of the three years of their new tentative contract settlement – and keep their fully paid health benefits.

District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton said the bargaining committee, led by Upstate New York/New England Director Dave Palmer and local President Linda McGrath, "reached a great agreement in particularly hard times. I think our agreement in Rochester will remain the best we have with that company."

McGrath, reporting the settlement on the morning of March 7, said, "We're very pleased. I think that overall it's a good contract for the membership, and it will help the company beat the competition."

Additional benefits of the pact include job security language covering all but 48 workers hired after Jan. 1, 1999 and an agreement that Frontier will provide a full year's wages plus a lump sum payment into the defined contribution pension plan for any workers surplused between now and Dec. 31, 2008.

Local 1170 agreed to consolidate several job titles and to give Frontier some of the flexibility the company sought.

The pact provides pension and vacation improvements and, McGrath said, performance bonuses are guaranteed for all employees as long as the company meets installation and repair standards established by the public service commission.

Bargaining past expiration of their old contract on Jan. 31, Local 1170 members voted to authorize a strike and wore black t-shirts to work every Thursday as a sign of solidarity. They conducted informational picketing outside the home of Rochester Frontier Senior Vice President Ann Burr and lined the halls of the RIT Conference Center where bargaining took place. A busload of members picketed corporate headquarters in Connecticut.

McGrath said the local would mail out contract explanation materials and conduct a ratification vote at its membership meeting on March. 24.