June 10th Bargaining Session

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Picket line at 5/24/10 RF Board Meeting

John Catalinotto

At the bargaining Thursday, June 10th, management refused to provide a counter on wages. That puts their current economic package at a 1.5% per year minimum for wages. As for health insurance, they propose increasing the employees’ contribution to the premium from 11% to 15% in the first year and to 19% in the second year. It would remain at 19% in the third year. This is a substantial improvement over their previous position, which was to increase the employee contribution to 19% immediately and tie further increases to those of nonunion employees. The union’s last proposal was 6% per year salary increases with a dollar minimum for lower wage employees and a phase-in of the health insurance increases over the life of the contract ending at 16%.

On non economic issues, management continues to insist on draconian no strike/no lockout language, which would prohibit hand billing and postings and would allow the RF to discharge an employee for any violation no matter how minor.