By CHARLES S. JOHNSON
Gazette State Bureau
HELENA - With labor negotiations at a stalemate, members of the union representing 306 NorthWestern Energy workers in Montana voted unanimously this week to ask its international union leaders to sanction a strike.
This vote is not a strike vote, but it can set the stage for one later. It takes approval from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' international president for a local to go on strike, plus a supermajority vote of the members of IBEW Local 44, based in Butte. Local 44 members work on NorthWestern's electric transmission lines and natural gas pipelines.
The union's preliminary vote was Monday, with 85 percent of the 306 IBEW Local 44 members casting ballots, with everyone voting to seek the strike sanction. The vote followed bargaining sessions Thursday and Friday that failed to come up with a settlement.
Agreed on 39 issues
The next collective bargaining session is scheduled for April 30. The two sides have agreed on 39 issues but are at odds over the major topics of pay and health insurance.
If union negotiators can't agree on an offer worth sending to its members for ratification, then with the international leaders' approval, they likely will send out notice of a possible strike on May 31. Local union members have the final say whether to vote to strike or accept the offer.
"IBEW prides themselves as the strikeless union," said Don Hendrickson, business manager of Local 44. "To be able to strike, they make you jump through a lot of hoops."
The last IBEW strike in Montana was in the 1950s or 1960s, Hendrickson said, adding: "We hope we don't have one here."
"If we don't get something hammered out by May 1, we plan on giving them the 30-day (strike) notice that's required contractually and by federal law," Hendrickson said. "If we don't have a deal, we plan on mailing it on May 1. Some time after that 30 days, we may invoke a collective cessation of work, or we may not."
Continuing negotiations
In response, NorthWestern spokeswoman Claudia Rapkoch said negotiations are continuing, with another bargaining session later this month.
She said NorthWestern, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizing its finances, has proposed a wage freeze for all of its employees. However, she said NorthWestern offered union members a cash payment the first year and annual pay increases the next two years after the company emerges from bankruptcy. Neither she nor Hendrickson would discuss the specific details.
"The discussions are ongoing, and I would characterize the discussions as being very professional and straightforward," she said. "As always, we don't discuss the stage of our ongoing negotiations or what we have on the table."
As she understands it, Rapkoch said the IBEW vote to seek a strike sanction from its international union is more procedural than anything and something the union has done in the past.
"It's all part of the process they have to follow," Rapkoch said. "In the meantime, we're still in discussions with them and moving forward."
The union's electronic newsletter, The Communicator, said 88 percent of the union members rejected NorthWestern's last offer with a turnout of 90 percent of the members. The union rejected the pay freeze NorthWestern said it was giving non-union workers, saying the IBEW members were not responsible for the bankruptcy.
Union members rejected NorthWestern's 11th-hour offer of the cash bonus as of May 1 instead of a percentage annual pay raise, Hendrickson said.
The other major issue is the transition to a new health insurance plan, he said, with the union goal to come up with a cash-neutral method from how medical flexible dollars are now calculated to how they would be figured in the future. At least of one-third of the wage package and transition chart submitted by the union would go toward covering the health care transition costs in Montana.
"We know we need to make the transition," Hendrickson said. "We're trying to make a cash-neutral transition but we're not there yet. Their proposal works for some and not for others."
Hendrickson said non-union NorthWestern office workers and other non-union employees typically look to the IBEW-NorthWestern negotiations to see what kind of pay hikes they can expect.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises
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