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North of 49°
First District Readies for Federal Election

Au nord du 49° parallèle
Le Premier District se prépare pour l'élection fédérale

HARD BARGAINING: Corporate America's
NEW PLAYBOOK

When the Great Recession struck with full force in 2008, many companies demanded deep concessions.

Workers across North America, including thousands of IBEW members, made numerous sacrifices to help their employers make it through those tough times.

Since then the economy has made a major turnaround — but most of its benefits are going to the top 1 percent of earners.

Profits have hit an all-time high. At the same time, wages as a percent of the economy have hit an all-time low.

Even at unionized companies, IBEW negotiators are confronting cash-rich employers who have replaced mutually beneficial collective bargaining with a winner-take-all, adversarial relationship — an approach some union activists are calling "hard bargaining."

"There are companies out there struggling, but even companies that are doing well are bullying everyone like it is still 2008," said IBEW Manufacturing Department Director Randy Middleton. "They don't need the concessions, their survival doesn't depend on givebacks, but they know workers have been afraid and they've sharpened their knives."

Across the nation, profitable companies like Rockwell Collins, Schneider Electric and GE are demanding the closure of pensions, pay freezes and higher health care costs.

Even a company like Southern California Edison, which has maintained a constructive relationship with its workers for decades, recently hired a union-busting lawyer to lead negotiations.

The trend is clear: corporations can afford to pay higher wages, they just aren't, and every day companies are paying their workers less.

"Every business knows, in the long run, we rise together," said IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill. "But what we are finding now are companies in one industry after the next, squeezing their workers without ever giving a thought to how it might end."

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