By PATTY WARREN, Organizer
On Thursday, April 17, 2008, the Union bargaining committee met with representatives of Penske. The purpose of this meeting was to continue our discussions with Penske regarding their plans with the Seattle Times to get a better handle on how they contemplate the jobs and schedules playing out, as well as to discuss what a Local 174 contract with Penske might look like if we agreed to the Seattle Times’ proposal to outsource the bulk transportation work. As always, the Penske management team was cordial, and we discussed the full spectrum of economic issues. We told Penske there were several deal breakers for us in their current proposal. The biggest hurdle remains the medical. We asked them to take a look at Teamster medical, but they have a very firm corporate position about the company medical plan. There remain two problems with the company plan: 1. The 35 hour a week qualifier, and 2. The structure where members have to pay more to cover their families. Penske is busy now crunching numbers to see if they can accommodate our interests. We also discussed language. We made sure they had a copy of our current contract, and told them that the fewer language changes there are, the better chances are of getting a contract to pass. We also told them some things were untouchable. Among the untouchable items are our right to honor picket lines, our union security clause and our bargaining unit work preservation language. At the close of the meeting, we agreed to have a follow-up meeting. We are going to e-mail each other with available dates. We are now in the process of scheduling a follow-up meeting with the Seattle Times. As always, stay tuned for more information!
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