The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 67/No. 25           July 28, 2003  
 
 
General Electric workers
sign four-year pact
 
BY ELLEN BRICKLEY  
LYNN, Massachusetts—Members of the International Union of Electronic Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) approved new four-year national contracts with General Electric (GE) by a 74 percent margin in June. The contracts were approved by membership votes in IUE-CWA and UE locals with a smaller approval percentage than the 2000 contract. Similar terms have been offered to 11 other unions that have local contracts with GE and agreements have been reached with most of these units. GE employs more than 24,000 workers nationally, of whom 16,500 are members of the IUE-CWA and the UE.

Workers in several large locals, including the ones in Lynn, Massachusetts, and Schenectady, New York, carried out a four-day strike in November 2002 over the issue of job security. In January 2003 IUE-CWA members carried out a nationwide two-day strike focused on defending health-care benefits for current and retired employees.

In the new four-year contract, pay increases in yearly raises and eight cost-of-living adjustments will amount to about 16 percent over four years. Some of that will be lost to an 18 percent increase in health insurance costs, down from GE’s initial proposal of more than double that amount. A clause, which was part of the previous pact, allowing GE to increase medical costs mid-contract is gone in this agreement. Retirees will receive a one-time bonus payment, a “13th check,” in December.

Before the membership vote, the national IUE-CWA GE Conference Board recommended that union members approve the tentative agreement, but the delegates from the locals in Lynn, Massachusetts, and Louisville, Kentucky, voted to oppose the contract. The membership in Lynn approved the contract with a vote in favor of 51 percent to 49 percent opposed.

As he entered a meeting on the proposed contract, Gene Day, an IUE-CWA Local 201 member in Lynn, commented, “It’s the worst contract we’ve negotiated. It doesn’t take care of retirees or those who are going to retire.” Local 201 officials issued a statement urging a no vote, pointing out that the wage offer was less than the last contract, medical costs had increased, and retirees had no inflation protection clause on their pension.

In Louisville, local union officials criticized the contract for not providing enough early retirement options. According to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, 1,800 of the workers at GE’s Louisville plant will be eligible to apply for early retirement during the course of the four-year pact, but the contract provides for only 1,020 early retirement opportunities for IUE-CWA-organized workers companywide.

GE’s stated plan is to reduce the union workforce from 13,000 IUE-CWA members to 9,000 by 2007.  
 
 
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