Business Managers Report: IBEW President Ed Hill Retires

 

Our International President, Ed Hill, has retired as of June 1st. The International Executive Council has appointed Sixth District Vice President Lonnie Stephenson to be the next International President until elections are held at our next convention.

 

We participated in the 3rd District Youth Caucus which was held on May 30th and 31st in the Albany area.

 

The Women’s Committee has been founded and is called “Women of IBEW Local 97 Power and Light Society”. They are having upcoming social events in all three divisions. All event information can be found on our Local 97 web site: (http://ibewlocal97.org).

 

We will be upgrading our Local 97 web site. Letters have been sent out to all our members to update their personal information in order to better communicate with our membership. Please return the form in the enclosed self-addressed stamped envelope.

 

We are in the process of an organizing campaign with Premier Locating in Buffalo. They have 18 Locators and ballots went out in the mail with the count being done on Thursday, June 18th. We intend to move across the system to try and organize other areas. If you see them in the field, reach out to them on the benefits of a union.

 

We held a second round of New Member Orientations in all three divisions. We had over 60 new members attend. It was well received and there was a good exchange of information.

 

 

 

 

We are still continuing with negotiations for Bear Swamp. This is the company we were successful in organizing.

 

We are still looking to reschedule 3rd step grievances.

 

 

We are meeting Thursday regarding a possible contract extension. There is a lot of benefit issues on the table. Their contract is up in September.

 

 

Moving to Exelon 401k Plan July 1st. Meetings were held for all employees. No benefit changes.

 

All open Discipline Grievances have been settled. Open Benefit Grievances still in review and discussion process to settle.

 

New hire employees for Mechanical, Electrical, I&C, Rad. Protection and Chemistry. They were scheduling training off-site and planning on sending them away for 6 to 8 weeks without telling us. Working on an MOA to address Initial Training matters for employees scheduled to attend training off-site.

 

Now they are doing their Standard of Conduct training. They do not have to sign off.

 

New Labor Agreement printing in process; books should be delivered soon.

 

MOA regarding ERO quarterly Drill Response has been agreed to. An hour of overtime will be provided to each employee that responds to the call-in call or text.

 

 

Gas Arbitration for H-Walkers on overtime issue with the East and Central was held. We are now waiting for the arbitrator’s decision.

 

We met with Bob DeMarinis and Keri Sweet on Gas issues. The Company is looking at finally using a union contractor but we still want to do the bulk of the work in-house. They might be interested in resurrecting the Article XXIII because of specialized equipment.

 

We signed a MOA for a Work Support Pilot in which we will be getting Sobo/Robo work back which management has been doing, no contractors for two years and lock-ins for Albany and four areas in Central for the North County. There will be no effect on the West other than gaining the work back.

 

Bonus checks are out. The payout was 3.36%. Like I have said in the past, put that away as a strike fund as 2017 is coming soon.

 

We are still working on the 97c job spec reviews.

 

 

Vince Peppenelli their Director of Labor Relations has left and Richard North is his replacement. We will be talking to him about his thoughts on future negotiations. We will be asking for either an extension or possibly pushing it out to give us more time.