10/22/2004
The Union Bargaining Team met all morning to prepare counter
proposals to the Company on active and retiree healthcare. A
comprehensive healthcare proposal is expected to be presented by
the Union.
The Union manufacturing sub-committee met today with the Company
to discuss issues on how to deal with the issues of peaks and
valleys in the workload and how to staff people accordingly.
The Consolidated Table met this afternoon and addressed
bargaining proposals around:
- Training Mentorship Programs
- Transferring Wage Rate
The Union rejected the Company proposal on lateral transfer
language and Bell Labs Movement of Personnel.
Finally, in National Sub-Committee discussions the Company and
the Union discussed proposals around the Long Term Savings and
Security Plan.
Bargaining will continue throughout the weekend and we will
update you accordingly.
We are once again asking everyone to voice their objections to
the Company on their lack of progress at the bargaining table,
and we must continue the mobilization to effect the change.
In Unity,
The Bargaining Team:
Ralph Maly
Mary Jo Sherman
Gerald Souder
Tom Bruhn
Mike Klein
Chuck Mitchell
Brian Reilly
Marcie Vincent
Friday, October 22, 2004
IBEW Local 668 (Lafayette, IN) buys, installs and removes Christmas Lighting for City with help of NECA
Downtown lighting gets more IBEW help
By Max Showalter, Journal and Courier
With her new job keeping her downtown every day, Lafayette city clerk Cindy Murray can hardly wait for Christmas to arrive, so she can get a good look at the holiday lighting and other decorations that are planned near city hall.
Murray was in attendance Thursday when Larry Spencer, assistant business manager with Local 668 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, presented a $5,000 check to the Downtown Business Center.
The money will be used to help pay for the purchase of decorative lighting that will be used year-round on Main, Columbia and some other downtown streets, and to help cover the cost of replacing bulbs in the holiday lights.
"I'm excited about seeing the lights," Murray said. The DBC "is such a fun group to work with. I feel like I have a new little family down here."
The donation was provided by IBEW Local 668 and its local contractor counterparts from the National Electrical Contractors Association.
"Nearly 100 volunteers from IBEW and the associate contractors will install the holiday lights" on Oct. 30, DBC president Doug Anderson said. "We appreciate their help in making our downtown a festive atmosphere."
Members of Local 668 have been putting up and taking down the Christmas lights since 1950, and Spencer said it is never hard to convince union members to volunteer for the project.
How to help
Donations to the decorative downtown lighting program, or the holiday lighting project, can be sent to Downtown Business Center, 200 N. Second St., Lafayette, IN 47902. Call the DBC at (765) 742-2313.
Copyright © 2002, Federated Publications, Inc.
By Max Showalter, Journal and Courier
With her new job keeping her downtown every day, Lafayette city clerk Cindy Murray can hardly wait for Christmas to arrive, so she can get a good look at the holiday lighting and other decorations that are planned near city hall.
Murray was in attendance Thursday when Larry Spencer, assistant business manager with Local 668 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, presented a $5,000 check to the Downtown Business Center.
The money will be used to help pay for the purchase of decorative lighting that will be used year-round on Main, Columbia and some other downtown streets, and to help cover the cost of replacing bulbs in the holiday lights.
"I'm excited about seeing the lights," Murray said. The DBC "is such a fun group to work with. I feel like I have a new little family down here."
The donation was provided by IBEW Local 668 and its local contractor counterparts from the National Electrical Contractors Association.
"Nearly 100 volunteers from IBEW and the associate contractors will install the holiday lights" on Oct. 30, DBC president Doug Anderson said. "We appreciate their help in making our downtown a festive atmosphere."
Members of Local 668 have been putting up and taking down the Christmas lights since 1950, and Spencer said it is never hard to convince union members to volunteer for the project.
How to help
Donations to the decorative downtown lighting program, or the holiday lighting project, can be sent to Downtown Business Center, 200 N. Second St., Lafayette, IN 47902. Call the DBC at (765) 742-2313.
Copyright © 2002, Federated Publications, Inc.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Romeo Paul Guelff, IBEW Local 6 (San Franciso CA) neon tube bender pasees on at 95
GUELFF, Romeo Paul
-
Sunday, October 17, 2004
GUELFF, Romeo Paul - Passed away at the age of 95. Born May 27, 1909 in Point PA. His family moved to Redondo Beach, CA, in 1921. Longtime resident of SF over 60 years, he was a member of Nature Friends and a working member of IBEW Local 6 as a neon tube bender electrician at Bethlehem Shipyard during WWII and as electrician in many of S.F. high rise buildings until retirement. Survived by his loving wife of 57 years, Bernice; and many nieces and nephews. Committal private. Driscoll's, Valencia St. Serra Mortuary, 1465 Valencia St, SF.
Page Z - 99
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/17/MNGUELFFRO32.DTL
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
-
Sunday, October 17, 2004
GUELFF, Romeo Paul - Passed away at the age of 95. Born May 27, 1909 in Point PA. His family moved to Redondo Beach, CA, in 1921. Longtime resident of SF over 60 years, he was a member of Nature Friends and a working member of IBEW Local 6 as a neon tube bender electrician at Bethlehem Shipyard during WWII and as electrician in many of S.F. high rise buildings until retirement. Survived by his loving wife of 57 years, Bernice; and many nieces and nephews. Committal private. Driscoll's, Valencia St. Serra Mortuary, 1465 Valencia St, SF.
Page Z - 99
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/17/MNGUELFFRO32.DTL
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
John Edwards' IBEW Electrician Brother Blake "spotlighted" in Campaign
Published: Oct 17, 2004
Modified: Oct 17, 2004 2:32 PM
Edwards' fame throws light on brother's flaws
By RYAN TEAGUE BECKWITH, RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER
(SH) - When John Edwards stepped into the spotlight as the Democratic vice presidential nominee this summer, he was not alone.
His wife, his children, even his parents all had their moments.
But none was cast in as harsh a light as his younger brother, Blake. When a New York newspaper dug up an outstanding warrant on a charge of drunken driving, Blake Edwards suddenly found his life was a matter of national interest.
In its story, The New York Daily News called him a "terror on the road." Comparisons to Billy Carter and Roger Clinton popped up, and an unflattering photograph appeared in newspapers as far away as Australia.
After a brief spell, things quieted down. Blake Edwards has refused interview requests and hired an attorney, and if everything goes as scheduled, he will appear next month in a Colorado courtroom, after the election. That should resolve the decade-old charge, the last remnant of what seems to be a much different part of his life.
"It's like a completely different person," neighbor Angie Giarelli said of media portrayals of Blake Edwards.
Blake Edwards' story - with its downs and ups - is not an unusual one and would have received little attention except for his brother's celebrity. But if his older brother is elected vice president, TV cameras and newspaper reporters will flood the Colorado courtroom, and political blogs again will light up with his name.
If the Democratic ticket loses, there still will be some interest, since John Edwards is touted as a possible presidential contender in 2008.
Either way, the quiet life of a Fuquay-Varina, N.C., electrician again will be lost in the rough-and-tumble world of national politics.
Wesley Blake Edwards was born in 1964, the youngest of three children. Like his brother and sister, he grew up in the mill town of Robbins, N.C. Eleven years younger than John, he went to North Moore High School in the early Reagan years, much different from the Nixon era of his brother.
After graduating in 1983, Edwards began getting in trouble with the law. After two accidents as a teenager and a ticket for going nearly 70 mph in a 55 mph zone, he was charged with driving while impaired in 1985.
He was convicted and lost his license for 10 days. Not long after he got it back, he was again ticketed, for speeding.
By 1987, Edwards had settled on a career as an electrician. He joined an apprenticeship program with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Durham. It took about four years to earn journeyman status, but finishing the program meant steady work at construction sites around the country.
Blake Edwards' troubles with the law didn't end. In 1987, he was pulled over for speeding and refused a breath-alcohol test. A judge found him guilty of driving while impaired and ordered him to spend a week in jail and surrender his license.
Then in 1990, he got a third drunken-driving conviction, this time in another state, and lost his license permanently under a North Carolina three-strikes law.
When he was pulled over in Colorado in 1993, three days after his 29th birthday, Edwards was in serious trouble. He was charged with driving while under the influence, careless driving and operating a vehicle without a license, according to court records.
When his court date came, he didn't show up. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
By many accounts, Blake Edwards has turned his life around in the decade since. On two occasions, he was cited for driving without a license, but he has not had a serious brush with the law since 1993. Still, he never resolved the Colorado charges.
In 1999, he and his wife, Debbie, moved into a $100,000 home in Fuquay-Varina, paid for in cash by John and Elizabeth Edwards. Their daughter is on the honor roll at a local elementary school.
Giarelli, a neighbor whose daughter plays with Edwards' daughter, described Blake Edwards as a hard-working family man, someone she has never seen take a drink of alcohol.
In an interview in July with The Pilot newspaper in Southern Pines, N.C., his mother, Bobbie, also defended him.
"He has his life together now and has a family now," she said. "That is his focus: to build a life for them. He is dealing with all these problems. He has been for some time."
© Copyright 2004, The News & Observer Publishing Company,
a subsidiary of The McClatchy CompanyMcClatchy Company
Sunday, October 17, 2004
IBEW Rank and File Fire up the Grid in Election Efforts
Author: Roberta Wood
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/16/04 00:00
Commentary
When Dick Cheney boasted during the vice presidential debate that he had “carried a ticket with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for six years,” he didn’t impress many IBEW members.
It was like a skunk bragging that he used to wear Chanel No. 5, I thought. He still stinks.
IBEW President Ed Hill fired back the next day in a sharply worded statement, saying he wished the union had done a better job instilling its values in the young Cheney when it had a chance. “Perhaps then he would not so relentlessly pursue policies that have caused catastrophic job losses and inflicted tremendous pain on countless working families,” Hill said.
Cheney might have learned that when the IBEW was founded over 100 years ago, one out of two workers in the industry died in falls or electrocutions. Safety standards, as much as wages, drove workers to band together in a brotherhood. On the job, each worker’s life was literally in the hands of his co-worker. In this election season, that vision of solidarity, of workers holding each other’s lives in their hands, has extended to the political arena.
So on a sunny August day, I was proud to be one of many IBEW members who poured into the battleground state of Ohio, crossing state lines to answer our brothers’ and sisters’ call for reinforcements in the battle for jobs and to defeat George Bush.
A Chicago bus, initiated by our city’s Electrical Workers Minority Caucus chapter, left in a pounding rainstorm at 3 in the morning. In Toledo, we paired up with local electricians and went on a 6-hour labor walk visiting union households. Kentuckians came to Cincinnati, Hoosiers to Columbus.
All told, nearly 200 IBEW members were out in force in Ohio that day, including in Cleveland, Akron and Marietta. In our neon-yellow shirts, the electrical workers scattered throughout working class neighborhoods sharing our own stories and election information with the union families we visited.
“Participating in activities like this makes for a different kind of union member,” said my canvassing partner, international rep Thomas Curley, as we went door to door in the east Toledo neighborhood where he grew up.
Local 3 in New York launched the union’s labor walk campaign June 23 with a three-bus convoy, accompanied by two dozen motorcyclists, to Philadelphia. The solidarity buses have continued every Saturday in September and October. This month, Local 3 also mobilized dozens of its unemployed members to staff voter registration tables in 15 hospitals and 15 community colleges over a five-day period, signing up thousands of new voters.
The union’s 2004 National Political Coordinator, Edwin Lopez, sees the activities transforming union members. Political activities are “identifying new activists, creating ways for them to participate, and renewing members’ belief in their union and pride in themselves as union members.”
Lopez worked in the tools as an inside wireman, and then as a Local 3 business rep. He is also a national leader of the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus. He’s a real working class intellectual, combining deep thinking on the problems facing the labor movement with non-stop activism.
“The members are learning first-hand how politics is tied to collective bargaining and to the right to organize. A core of activists is the heart and soul of the union,” he said. “All we have is our members – if our members are not charged up, we have nothing.”
It’s not just the IBEW rank and file that’s charged up. Hill told a recent women’s conference, he found himself saying things he earlier would have called radical, “talking the same talk as the labor leaders of the 1930s. There’s a class war being waged,” Hill said, “even though we didn’t start it.”
It’s working class pride and determination that characterizes the three-pronged approach that Hill has been relentlessly promoting — organizing, political action and emphasis on skills and quality workmanship.”
“The card that the vice president carried was his ticket to decent wages and benefits for the fruits of his labor,” Hill’s response to Cheney stated. “It’s too bad that now he wants to pull up the ladder and deny that same opportunity to others.”
IBEW members are on the road this fall, crossing state lines, to make sure it doesn’t happen. It’s a brotherhood thing, Dick. You wouldn’t understand.
The author, labor editor of the Peoples Weekly World and a 15-year member of IBEW Local 9, can be reached at rwood@pww.org.
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/16/04 00:00
Commentary
When Dick Cheney boasted during the vice presidential debate that he had “carried a ticket with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for six years,” he didn’t impress many IBEW members.
It was like a skunk bragging that he used to wear Chanel No. 5, I thought. He still stinks.
IBEW President Ed Hill fired back the next day in a sharply worded statement, saying he wished the union had done a better job instilling its values in the young Cheney when it had a chance. “Perhaps then he would not so relentlessly pursue policies that have caused catastrophic job losses and inflicted tremendous pain on countless working families,” Hill said.
Cheney might have learned that when the IBEW was founded over 100 years ago, one out of two workers in the industry died in falls or electrocutions. Safety standards, as much as wages, drove workers to band together in a brotherhood. On the job, each worker’s life was literally in the hands of his co-worker. In this election season, that vision of solidarity, of workers holding each other’s lives in their hands, has extended to the political arena.
So on a sunny August day, I was proud to be one of many IBEW members who poured into the battleground state of Ohio, crossing state lines to answer our brothers’ and sisters’ call for reinforcements in the battle for jobs and to defeat George Bush.
A Chicago bus, initiated by our city’s Electrical Workers Minority Caucus chapter, left in a pounding rainstorm at 3 in the morning. In Toledo, we paired up with local electricians and went on a 6-hour labor walk visiting union households. Kentuckians came to Cincinnati, Hoosiers to Columbus.
All told, nearly 200 IBEW members were out in force in Ohio that day, including in Cleveland, Akron and Marietta. In our neon-yellow shirts, the electrical workers scattered throughout working class neighborhoods sharing our own stories and election information with the union families we visited.
“Participating in activities like this makes for a different kind of union member,” said my canvassing partner, international rep Thomas Curley, as we went door to door in the east Toledo neighborhood where he grew up.
Local 3 in New York launched the union’s labor walk campaign June 23 with a three-bus convoy, accompanied by two dozen motorcyclists, to Philadelphia. The solidarity buses have continued every Saturday in September and October. This month, Local 3 also mobilized dozens of its unemployed members to staff voter registration tables in 15 hospitals and 15 community colleges over a five-day period, signing up thousands of new voters.
The union’s 2004 National Political Coordinator, Edwin Lopez, sees the activities transforming union members. Political activities are “identifying new activists, creating ways for them to participate, and renewing members’ belief in their union and pride in themselves as union members.”
Lopez worked in the tools as an inside wireman, and then as a Local 3 business rep. He is also a national leader of the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus. He’s a real working class intellectual, combining deep thinking on the problems facing the labor movement with non-stop activism.
“The members are learning first-hand how politics is tied to collective bargaining and to the right to organize. A core of activists is the heart and soul of the union,” he said. “All we have is our members – if our members are not charged up, we have nothing.”
It’s not just the IBEW rank and file that’s charged up. Hill told a recent women’s conference, he found himself saying things he earlier would have called radical, “talking the same talk as the labor leaders of the 1930s. There’s a class war being waged,” Hill said, “even though we didn’t start it.”
It’s working class pride and determination that characterizes the three-pronged approach that Hill has been relentlessly promoting — organizing, political action and emphasis on skills and quality workmanship.”
“The card that the vice president carried was his ticket to decent wages and benefits for the fruits of his labor,” Hill’s response to Cheney stated. “It’s too bad that now he wants to pull up the ladder and deny that same opportunity to others.”
IBEW members are on the road this fall, crossing state lines, to make sure it doesn’t happen. It’s a brotherhood thing, Dick. You wouldn’t understand.
The author, labor editor of the Peoples Weekly World and a 15-year member of IBEW Local 9, can be reached at rwood@pww.org.
IBEW Local 659 (Medford OR) pickets Pacific Power over contracting out bargaining unit jobs
By PAUL CRAIG, pcraig@newsreview.info
October 14, 2004
GREEN -- Local Pacific Power employees are picketing this week, showing frustration over the company's decision to contract out work.
Pacific Power has begun contracting out the job of locating underground power lines statewide. The move, according to company officials, will not cost any current employees their jobs or even result in reduced wages or hours.
Instead, it is supposed to allow Pacific Power employees to spend more time on higher-priority jobs.
Some employees don't agree. They've carried signs against the decision before and after regular job shifts, saying their work is going to "non-qualified workers."
The employees, representing the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 659, have picketed in front of Pacific Power's operations center on the corner of East Happy Valley Road and Old Highway 99 South near Green.
The same has happened at Pacific Power locations across the state.
It's not a work stoppage protest, however, as all the employees are starting work on time.
"We're doing an informational picket for the public," said one picket Wednesday morning. "It's not a strike or anything like that."
The union adopted a code prohibiting individuals from giving out their names. A union-produced flier instead states their case.
It says Pacific Power will go through a company that uses an "inferior method" of doing the work, with "inexperienced, poorly trained, underpaid workers." The result, the workers claim, will reduce work for experienced employees and further erode the company's community presence.
It further states that any savings Pacific Power might incur will go straight to its parent company, Scottish Power, and not to customers.
An employee at Pacific Power's local operations center directed all questions to Bekki Witt, company spokeswoman in Portland.
Witt said the union's claims are simply not accurate.
"At Pacific Power safety is our number one priority and we would not compromise that in any way," she said.
Power line locating happens when customers request the service before starting a project, from installing a fence to building a shopping center. It's typically seasonal, like construction, but still performed regularly.
Those who are picketing, Witt said, are not losing their jobs, they just won't be asked to do that part of it any longer.
The unions were approached about contracting the work, Witt said, but declined.
The contracted, non-union employees are trained, have experience and are endorsed by other utilities and a public safety group, according to Witt.
Pacific Power provides service to 1.6 million customers in six states. Contracting underground power line location has already been employed outside of Oregon. Other utilities also frequently use contracted vendors, Witt said.
Pacific Power would have preferred contracting union workers, Witt said, and management has heard the picketing has more to do with not using a union vendor than other concerns.
The pickets' flier only discusses safety. It says without proper line location, utilities would not only be damaged, but customers could die or be burned to the point of amputation by accidentally digging into an energized power line.
"The saddest point is that Pacific Power is willing to sacrifice public safety," it states.
A picket said Wednesday morning that the union hoped to have a meeting with Pacific Power officials Oct. 25.
No meeting is officially set, according to Pacific Power.
There is no word on how long the picketing will continue.
"We'll do whatever we can to maintain those relationships," Witt said, adding, "I don't know about specific plans to halt the picketing."
* You can reach reporter Paul Craig at 957-4211 or by e-mail at pcraig@newsreview.info.
.
October 14, 2004
GREEN -- Local Pacific Power employees are picketing this week, showing frustration over the company's decision to contract out work.
Pacific Power has begun contracting out the job of locating underground power lines statewide. The move, according to company officials, will not cost any current employees their jobs or even result in reduced wages or hours.
Instead, it is supposed to allow Pacific Power employees to spend more time on higher-priority jobs.
Some employees don't agree. They've carried signs against the decision before and after regular job shifts, saying their work is going to "non-qualified workers."
The employees, representing the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 659, have picketed in front of Pacific Power's operations center on the corner of East Happy Valley Road and Old Highway 99 South near Green.
The same has happened at Pacific Power locations across the state.
It's not a work stoppage protest, however, as all the employees are starting work on time.
"We're doing an informational picket for the public," said one picket Wednesday morning. "It's not a strike or anything like that."
The union adopted a code prohibiting individuals from giving out their names. A union-produced flier instead states their case.
It says Pacific Power will go through a company that uses an "inferior method" of doing the work, with "inexperienced, poorly trained, underpaid workers." The result, the workers claim, will reduce work for experienced employees and further erode the company's community presence.
It further states that any savings Pacific Power might incur will go straight to its parent company, Scottish Power, and not to customers.
An employee at Pacific Power's local operations center directed all questions to Bekki Witt, company spokeswoman in Portland.
Witt said the union's claims are simply not accurate.
"At Pacific Power safety is our number one priority and we would not compromise that in any way," she said.
Power line locating happens when customers request the service before starting a project, from installing a fence to building a shopping center. It's typically seasonal, like construction, but still performed regularly.
Those who are picketing, Witt said, are not losing their jobs, they just won't be asked to do that part of it any longer.
The unions were approached about contracting the work, Witt said, but declined.
The contracted, non-union employees are trained, have experience and are endorsed by other utilities and a public safety group, according to Witt.
Pacific Power provides service to 1.6 million customers in six states. Contracting underground power line location has already been employed outside of Oregon. Other utilities also frequently use contracted vendors, Witt said.
Pacific Power would have preferred contracting union workers, Witt said, and management has heard the picketing has more to do with not using a union vendor than other concerns.
The pickets' flier only discusses safety. It says without proper line location, utilities would not only be damaged, but customers could die or be burned to the point of amputation by accidentally digging into an energized power line.
"The saddest point is that Pacific Power is willing to sacrifice public safety," it states.
A picket said Wednesday morning that the union hoped to have a meeting with Pacific Power officials Oct. 25.
No meeting is officially set, according to Pacific Power.
There is no word on how long the picketing will continue.
"We'll do whatever we can to maintain those relationships," Witt said, adding, "I don't know about specific plans to halt the picketing."
* You can reach reporter Paul Craig at 957-4211 or by e-mail at pcraig@newsreview.info.
.
IBEW Local 97 (Syracuse NY) inks tentative agreement, negating strike worries with Niagra-Mohawk Power
www.news10now.com
NiMo strike averted
Updated: 10/16/2004 10:44 PM
By: News 10 Now Staff
IBEW Local 97 and Niagara Mohawk have agreed to a tentative 42 month agreement, along with an extension until the end of the month with the current bargaining agreement.
This decision comes after nearly a week of threats to strike, and a decision by the union Friday, to vote down the latest contract offer.
Union President David Falletta says the union and NiMo made it back to the bargaining table thanks to some help from state politicians.
"Senator Clinton, Senator Schumer and many others went to bat for us to help us get back to the bargaining table. And once that ocurred and we sat down and began discussing the issues, the company and both local 97 found enough common ground to avert what would have been an absolute crisis and disaster at midnight"
Falletta says the strike was averted because Niagara Mohawk offered a better benefits package than in previous contract talks. He says he lends his full support to the new contract, and expects the union to vote on the contract later this week.
Copyright © 2004 TWEAN d.b.a. News 10 Now
NiMo strike averted
Updated: 10/16/2004 10:44 PM
By: News 10 Now Staff
IBEW Local 97 and Niagara Mohawk have agreed to a tentative 42 month agreement, along with an extension until the end of the month with the current bargaining agreement.
This decision comes after nearly a week of threats to strike, and a decision by the union Friday, to vote down the latest contract offer.
Union President David Falletta says the union and NiMo made it back to the bargaining table thanks to some help from state politicians.
"Senator Clinton, Senator Schumer and many others went to bat for us to help us get back to the bargaining table. And once that ocurred and we sat down and began discussing the issues, the company and both local 97 found enough common ground to avert what would have been an absolute crisis and disaster at midnight"
Falletta says the strike was averted because Niagara Mohawk offered a better benefits package than in previous contract talks. He says he lends his full support to the new contract, and expects the union to vote on the contract later this week.
Copyright © 2004 TWEAN d.b.a. News 10 Now
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