Local 601

Good contracts in cannery industry

“2010 is off to a great start, in part due to the Cannery Council negotiations and members at H.J. Heinz’ Stockton Plant who ratified a new con- tract,”says Local 601 Secretary-Treasurer Lucio Reyes. “The Heinz negotiations were difficult, but in the end, we were able to get the same wages, pension and benefits for all members as we nego- tiated for the CPI contract, retro to July 1, 2009.”

Reyes gives extra thanks to Local 601’s staff, Local 948 Secretary-Treasurer Lupe Juarez, Local 890, and IBT Vice-President Fred Gegare, who all assisted in the process. “When you consider the gains made in these negotiations, it shows the power that unions give workers to enhance their quality of life during tough economic times.”

Local 624

NeilMed strike goes into month three

NeilMed Pharmaceuticals forced its workers to strike at 5 a.m. on Thursday May 20th in response to the company’s intolerable working conditions and numerous violations of federal labor law. As the Joint Council 7 News goes to press, the 60 employees are still on strike at the Santa Rosa facility, going into their third month.

The National Labor Relations Board issued sever- al complaints against NeilMed and is investigating several more labor violations committed by the company, including bargaining in bad faith, coerc- ing employees, threatening to retaliate against work- ers, and unilaterally changing working conditions.

“In spite of our best efforts, NeilMed is continu- ally committing unfair labor practices against the employees of the company,” said Local 624 Secretary-TreasurerRalphMiranda.“Theemployees have voted overwhelmingly to withhold their labor resulting from the injustices.”

Miranda says that the union and the company have only held two negotiating sessions since the union election was certified in September of 2009. “We have been unsuccessful in getting either a return to work or an acceptable agreement,” Miranda explained. “We have made one more request through the Federal Mediation Service to negotiate and hope to get back to the table soon.”

To date, none of the workers have crossed the picket line, and they have repeatedly voted to hold the line. “We want a union because we need some-one to go to bat for us when this owner tries to mis- treat us. We know the Teamsters will do that” said NeilMed worker Elmer Cisneros. “We do not want to return to work until we have a union contract.”

According to Miranda, the company is operating with a skeleton crew. “They’re down from 200 to 18 during the day and 10 at night. The strike has been hurting them quite a bit.”

The union has decided to escalate the strike into a boycott, starting with an area-wide boycott. “We’ll expand it to a national boycott if we can’t get a rea- sonable settlement.”

Miranda thanked the members of Locals 853 and 70 for not crossing the picket line. He also gave thanks to the International and to the Joint Council for their help, organizers and strategy-setting.

“This campaign is about an obvious abuse of workers,” said Joint Council 7 President Rome Aloise. “If we organize companies and can’t get con- tracts, other companies will try to do the same thing. We have to fight until we get a contract at NeilMed.” Aloise added that the union would advise Costco, a major purchaser of NeilMed products, of the com- pany’s actions, and ask Costco to put some pressure on the company as well.

Local 853

Teamsters at Safeway win settlement for seniority violations

Safeway Settlement

Communication between shop stewards and their business represen- tatives can be critical in identifying and rectifying company policy viola- tions. Local 853 Rep Lou Valetta says he was able to get the members at Safeway Richmond’s bread plant a settlement of $10,000 because the steward took a perceived problem up the union chain.

In November, 2009, Safeway shop steward Lionel Eason contacted Valetta to let him know that Safeway was violating the seniority clause in the collective bargaining agreement by scheduling on-call employees out of seniority.

After meeting with company employees in charge of the schedule for Teamster loaders and shippers, Valetta and Eason advised them that they were violating the contract and should stop immediately. Their response was that they would schedule who they wanted to for specific jobs as needed.

Valetta filed a grievance but the company continued the practice until January of 2010. In all, 55 days of seniority violations had occurred.

In the end, Teamsters Local 853 prevailed on the grievance and the company had to pay more than $10,000 to the individual Teamsters whose seniority had been violated.

“This, or any other violation of our contract, can only be upheld by your union with the communication and participation of the members,” advised Valetta. “Without shop stewards or individual members making Teamster representatives aware of the day-to-day activities in your workplace, your union’s strength is diminished. We must all protect the hard-fought nego- tiations and protections that our collective bargaining agreement provides us every single day.”

Local 856

Pittsburg withdraws imposed contract, reaches fair deal

In an extraordinarily rare move, the City of Pittsburg withdrew the contract it had unilaterally imposed on the Teamsters, and in June came to a three-year deal that benefits both the city and its workers.

The new agreement restores retiree medical bene- fits for workers hired before July 1, 2007, and intro- duces a tiered plan for workers hired after July 1, 2007, adding a new a tax-deferred program for work- ers hired after December 31, 2011.

The city will continue to contribute 100% of the Kaiser premium rate until the end of the calendar year, after which it will institute caps for years two and three of the contract.

Workers will still have to make contributions to their retirement, however, instead of the full 7% start- ing July 1, they will not reach that rate until the end of three years.

“The Teamsters and the City have enjoyed a pro- ductive business relationship over the 13 years of their association,” said Don Lawson, Teamsters Local 856 Business Representative and Staff Attorney. “We value our relationship and look forward to working together to bolster and build up the economic condi- tion of the City.”

 

Local 890

Members win back pay awards from two companies

Local 890 representatives, in con- junction with a state agency, were able to get Valentin Perez retroactive back pay in the amount of $26,000. Perez, an employee of Taylor Farms of California in Salinas, was terminated after an on-the-job injury.

Humberto Castañeda, a Teamster driver from Sodexo-Metro Park in Stockton, was unjustly terminated in February. Francisco Reynozo, his union representative, filed a grievance and, after seven weeks, he was rein- stated with full pay and benefits and got a check for $5,000 in back pay.

 

Local 948

Update on contract negotiations

The members at Ball Can Company overwhelmingly ratified their collec- tive bargaining agreement. “This is a very busy plant and the Local 948 members employed there do a great job keeping this company running smoothly and efficiently,” says Local 948 Secretary-Treasurer Lupe Juarez. The Local is currently in the midst of negotiating the contract for Cemex and should be wrapping it up very soon with an offer that should be sat- isfactory to the employees there.

myhealthIQ

Recently, members were sent a Joint Benefit Trust newsletter that featured an article on myhealthIQ. “I’m happy to say that many of you took advantage of this very important program. I encourage any of you who did not participate to consider making an appointment the next time it is offered in your area,” Juarez said. For those members in or near Modesto, the program will be offered at Stanislaus Foods in September.