|
On September 14, Delegates to the District Council voted
and approved a "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) with the Association of Wall-Ceiling and Carpentry Industries, by a
vote of 35-28 and voted and approved a Cement League (MOU) by a vote of 45 to 18.
This is my memory of the voting. Yes votes came from all the local 45
guys, local 20 led by Chris Wallace voted yes with the exception of one
guy who abstained.
Local 926 I am unsure of. I believe John Holt said
no. I am not not sure about local 740.
That new local all voted yes, Floor guys voted
yes, Dockbuilders voted no. Joe Geiger said yes.
Local 157 no votes came from
Pat Nee, Kevin Corrigan, Steve Philbin, John Gaffney, Tom Mcgonicle, Tom Weimer, John Carty, George La Montagne, I am unsure how Danny Demorta and Cory
Kennedy voted.
On the local 157 yes side were Paul Caperso, Tom Mckeon, Elli
Spicer, Martin Lydon , Ibric Ramadan, Eddie Mc Williams voted yes to
Cement League and no to Wall and Ceiling and finally Steve Mcginnis who
could not attend but wrote a fine letter of support for our men from the
international who work 24/7 on our behalf, at this point my eyes began
to mist up, I am sure I was not the only one to experence this raw emotion.
Well thats my recollection of the meeting, feel free to correct any mistakes in this post. |
Cory Kennedy Voted Yes to the cement league and no to the drywall association.
ReplyDeleteSo I was disappointed to have missed the opportunity to explain my delegate vote on the MOU at the recent Local 157 meeting (my son had a High School visit to attend) but I believe you all deserve to know why I voted the way I did.
ReplyDeleteI voted yes to both MOUs. Why?
1. These were not final ratification of contracts so I knew we had another bite at the apple if they didn't clean up certain issues I objected to including the "Helper Scrapper"
2. They provide for good raises.
3. I knew because of the raises ($11.00 over 5 years for wall and ceiling and 5$ for 3 year cement league) as opposed to the previous MOU submission to the delegates which we didn't even take to a vote where there was a give back of $3.85) that the contractor associations were pissed when they thought they were getting a give back now we were getting a raise and they were looking for any opportunity to take this offer off the table the same way the members advisory team had taken the other offer off the table. If we had voted it down it would have been starting over from scratch and would not, I believe, have resulted in a raise the size that is currently contemplated.
4. The helper Scrapper is a major problem which I made clear when I came in the next morning and gave my vow that I would be voting against the final ratification if that language wasn't nailed down. They are revamping the whole concept since many of us had issues. I didn't want to lose the raises that had been secured.
5. The BCA and GCA are still negotiating and if we had lost the Wall and Ceiling, the BCA would have been in a much stronger position to resist wage increases.
6. After the court conference on Monday all new MOUs or final CBA's will be approved by the new delegate body decided by Oct 25th. (I was obviously not aware of this at the time of the vote but does support my belief that we would have another chance to see improvement or vote it down.)
7. 5 weeks prior to the vote we had a tentative MOU with a give back of $3.85 and in 5 weeks there was a major turn around for a significant increase. I felt the negotiating team of members was worth supporting to strengthen the language and still have a chance to vote no if it didn't work.
8. At this delegates meeting the issue of Full mobility wasn't raised by anyone as a problem which I was very surprised at. However there are some very serious conditions that the contractors must agree to in order to have full mobility including that there will only be NYC District Council of Carpenters on the job site. Locking out LI, Westchester and NJ Locals and anyone else from out of town, scanner program, more investigators (the RO wants this) and certified payrolls and certified employees.
If anyone has questions or comments let me know. I think the more discussion we have on this the better informed we are to make decisions.
The delegate slate I am running with has an interesting spread of views on all of these issues which I find interesting. There was no litmus test for running and people are encouraged to have discussion and developed well informed decisions. I couldn't ask for more at this point.
DROP DEAD UNITY TEAM !
ReplyDeleteHey Nice Blog!!! Thank you for sharing information. Wonderful blog & good post.Its really helpful for me, waiting for a more new post. Keep Blogging!
ReplyDeleteAccountants for construction workers in London