Verizon, Tampa Local 824 Reach
Tentative Agreement
FLASH: The Contract was ratified on August 27
by
over 65% of the members voting.
August 8, 2005
A full-scale membership mobilization and an effective media campaign were key levers in an August 5 tentative agreement between Tampa, Florida IBEW Local 824 and Verizon. The proposed contract includes significant improvements in job security, wages and benefits and scheduling flexibility.
The five-year agreement addresses job scheduling concerns by providing for workers to take time off in two-, four-, and eight-hour increments, up to a maximum of 48 hours a year. Under the expired contract, employees could take only whole days off. Joint union-company committees are established to address other scheduling issues.
Bargaining unit members who were laid off under the expired contract were forced to take tests to enter other jobs within the same pay grade or a lower one. The new contract ends that requirement, providing that senior employees will be trained for new jobs if their former jobs are abolished.
The work scheduling and job security issues were at the forefront of the local's mobilization efforts. "It was a sea of red on Thursdays and black on Fridays" said a local representative, describing the membership's response to the solidarity-building T-shirt days prior to the contract's expiration on August 1. Members set up informational pickets at three large call centers in Tampa, one in St. Petersburg and dozens of smaller shops. At the largest center, 170 members joined the picketing.
Coordinated T-shirt days were organized in many other Verizon locals, with members well-informed on the issues in Florida.
The 4,400-member local's two-pronged message was simple. Verizon workers, including large numbers of women who head households, deserve more scheduling flexibility to tend to their family needs. Verizon workers and the Tampa-area community deserve an employer who won't strand dedicated, veteran workers when technologies and markets change.
Because the local put a human face on the issues and focused its message, Tampa newspaper coverage was, according to Local 824 leaders, far more balanced than during past contracts.
The tentative accord calls for a 4 percent bonus and a 1 percent wage increase in the first year of the contract, a 2 percent wage increase in the second year and two 2.5 percent increases in each of the final three years of the agreement. Employees also would receive an additional floating holiday--totaling seven per year--under the agreement.
Local 824 also maintained its health care plan without any increases in co-payments on doctor visits, pushing back any increases in prescription drugs until 2007. Beginning January 1, 2007, employees will have an annual $25 deductible for prescription drugs, with a prescription cost of 20 percent of the cost of the drug, up to a maximum of $40 per prescription. There are no increases in co-payments for doctor's visits.
The members and leaders of Local 824 took the first step in getting mobilized, providing Verizon System Council locals and Chairman Myles Calvey the opportunity to engage in strong, principled and constructive bargaining with Verizon.
"The locals that participated in the national mobilization," says President Edwin D. Hill, "should be applauded for their foresight and understanding that this is more than a fight of Local 824 to get an agreement in Florida." "It is a battle that the IBEW will have with Verizon throughout the country," he adds.
This model of labor solidarity, says Hill, is essential as the IBEW enters new rounds of contract negotiations with Verizon in North Carolina and Ohio. "Make no mistake about it," he says, "solidarity works."
The membership will vote on the agreement by mail, with all votes to be counted on August 27.
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