Agenda:

As we go to press, our yearly UE 506 Golf Tournament is coming together. It is being held on August 12, 2006 at the challenging Erie Golf course off of Zuck Road. It not too late to get your friends and family registered.See your Steward or Chief Steward for an application, or stop at the Hall.

The Sports Committee was formed to try and get our members out of the shop to participate in different activities together and to have a good time. We as a committee are always willing to listen to member’s ideas. We had a member out of Building 18 come to us with a new idea, a "Paintball Outing".

The event will be held on October 14, 2006 with a $50.00 per person fee which includes all of your basic needs for the day, including, mask, gun, and 500 rounds of paint. Also a steak dinner will be included at the end of the event. A flyer with more information will be coming out shortly. If your have any question call: For first shift; Roger Zaczyk @ 875-6267 or for second shift; Matt McCracken @ 875-6421.

Lean Update- After several meetings with the company the two-shift proposal was officially taken off the table on July 19, 2006. The meetings were obviously productive but also gave us the opportunity to exchange ideas about Lean Manufacturing and what it means to Erie.

Lean Mfg. eliminates waste from the production process, and assures that the parts we need to perform our jobs are there when we need them. Those two steps combined with single piece flow will increase the capacity of the Erie plant - that’s what the company is looking for. What do we as workers want from Lean Mfg.? Well, steady employment levels, the opportunity to retire, and the knowledge that these jobs will be here for future generations. In the areas that Lean has been implemented productivity has increased, so to use a phrase from another era we are earning "Job Security". The company knows that we are not interested in SERO’s that are tied to job loss events, if Lean creates that situation we fully expect work to be in-sourced.

Contract negotiations are less than a year away and the process has already begun. The CBC (Coordinated Bargaining Committee) steering committee met in Washington D.C. on July 21, 2006 and a majority of the 13 unions were present. There is a possibility that the IAM may come back to the CBC this year and we certainly would welcome them and their membership back into the CBC.

The UE Conference Board will meet in Pittsburgh on August 25, 2006, where we will craft a survey that will be used to determine the issues most important to the membership (i.e. Health Care, Pension, Night Bonus, Job Security, etc.). Those surveys will be handed out to the membership in September.

The CBC will get together again in October to discuss our bargaining goals. As many of you know the CBC is comprised of 13 (hopefully 14 this year) unions, but only the UE and the IUE receive national contracts from negotiations.

29^th GRIEVANCE

- By CPS Randy Majewski

Grievance update - Due to vacations and shutdown we have gotten a little behind on the monthly update on grievances. In May we had 31 cases, 20 were closed, nine were put on hold and 2 others went to Step 3 of the grievance procedure. At the Step 3 meeting in Pittsburgh on June 14th, 7 cases were closed, seven went to a docket number and two of the grievances returned to Step 2. We had another Step 2 meeting on June 23rd, which resulted in 11 cases being closed and fifteen others put on hold. There is another Step 2 meeting tentatively scheduled for the middle of August. We will keep you informed on that meeting.

Shop issues - Last month, the officers and UE General President John Hovis met with a delegation of 506 members representing minority workers in the plant. The delegations concerns of the were the lack of minority hires in the General Electric Plant. The officers and President Hovis listened to the concerns of the council and pledged our support for future minority hiring throughout the General Electric system. President Hovis assured the council of his same efforts at the corporate level. There were other issues brought up, also about the Race Relations in the plant. Race is never an easy issue when brought up. I have usually found that honesty and respect are usually the best language anyone can use. As I have said in other articles - You don't have to like one another; you just need to have the respect for each other. Talking is also something that seems to help a situation because silence can breed contempt, and after talking with someone, you usually find out that the person or those people are not that much different than you. When one or both sides do not want to listen or talk or compromise that will lead to a very tense and uncomfortable situation. We do have the unity council in place for such issues, and don't think that a phone call is that much of a trouble because it isn’t. We all are here to make a decent living for our families. Working is tough enough not getting along makes it worse.

FORMER UE ORGANIZER PASSES

Grace Lillian Coyle Fowler, a former union organizer, died on July 26, 2006. Grace, helped organize the Sylvania plant in Warren, PA where she met her husband Richard Fowler at a UE meeting. She was then very active in the Erie area working closely with then Local 506 leaders John Nelson and Jim Kennedy. Grace was also a founding member of the Irish Cultural Society and started the Tipperary West gift store in Erie.

Effective January 1, 2007, GE will be switching insurance carriers for the Health Care Preferred Plan, HCP. At that time Health America will replace High Mark Select Blue (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Pa). The last data we received indicated that over 70% of the workforce was enrolled in this alternative to the Company Medical Benefit Plan, CMB. The change will not affect the CMB Plan or the other alternative, the UPMC Plan. The change in carriers will not change any of the provisions of the HCP Plan. Those provisions are locked in until the current UE-GE Contract expires.

In June, while the company was still taking bids from insurance carriers, the officers were invited to meet with Health America representatives. Through that meeting we learned that Health America took over the former New Alliance Plan. Their parent company is Coventry Health Care, which has membership exceeding 4 million members with operations in all 50 states

Regarding the change in carriers, the chief concern is that the providers, both primary care physicians, PCPs, and specialists reflects the current list, so members will not have to change providers or insurance plans. During the June meeting, the Health America reps. told the officers that they had agreements with most of the current HCP providers and were working to enlist the remaining providers by the Fall Enrollment period. The officers also expressed concern towards Health America’s customer service policies

Since awarding the contract we’ve heard from some members who’ve had bad experiences with Health America through their spouse’s insurance. We’ve also received some negative feedback from some providers. Nonetheless we’re hoping for a smooth transition. If there are problems, the company will be sure to hear from the union.

Speaking during the June 506 Membership meetings, UE-GE Conference Board Secretary Steve Tormey talked about American companies backing out of a postwar social contract by telling workers that they no longer want to provide health insurance, pensions and maintain fair wages. Steve pointed out that real wages have declined since the 1970’s. "The solution has been to work more or send the spouse out to work – or you go into debt. The level of consumer debt is the highest ever."

The Conference Board Secretary also gave his view of the bargaining climate as UE Members prepare for the 2007 Contract Negotiations. Steve said that the climate around the country is not good for workers and Unions. Steve explained that, "46 million Americans do not have medical insurance and there is nothing even close to being done to address the problem; and knives are being sharpened for retiree plans. 25 years ago 80% of the retirement plans were defined benefit plans where workers are guaranteed a set amount. Today only 38% remain defined. There are no new plans being negotiated." "Instead," Steve pointed out, "companies like IBM and Verizon have recently eliminated their defined plans and replaced them with 401 K’s where the workers bear all of the risk of investing."

Steve referred to an interview conducted with GE’s Senior Vice President, Human Relations William Conaty in which he said, "healthy companies – IBM, Alcoa and Verizon being recent examples – are looking at and making changes to these long-term obligations because of the effects they have on their ability to win in tough, competitive markets." Steve disagreed with Mr. Conaty’s statement. He said, "They (the companies) are making changes because they can. IBM doesn’t have a union. Neither do the GE exempt employees hired since 2005, who will be denied any company provided medical insurance when they retire. Simply stated they made the changes because no one was there to stop them."

Steve stated that the Conaty interview, with its talk of "legacy costs", was clearly meant to send a message. He said that the members were well aware however, that GE remains the most financially successful company on the planet, and that we need to send back a message of our own.

"We are not on a Union Island," Steve said. "We will be working with the 13 CBC Unions and we need to reach out to the community. "If they don’t have health insurance, we have to help them secure it. Most important, we need to engage and educate the membership, and create our own climate leading into negotiations. Our work must not only be to maintain but to strengthen the contract." Steve reminded the 506 members that the (UE-GE) contract was bequeathed to us through 70 years of prior negotiations and, speaking for all CBC Members, "We won’t let it be dismantled."

Home Page     Meetings     UE 506 NEWS