New Contract..

[gant]

Well we voted on our new contract today..We lost our overtime after 8 and it will be after 40..We got $5.07 for 5 years.. we wont see a raise for 2 years due to health and welfare going up.. years 3,4,5 we get $1.30,$1.40,$1.50..The money is decent, but the overtime thing has me bothered so I voted no, but it won with a 14-6 vote for our plant... Ohwell atleast we got a 5 year deal, sat. and sunday are still overtime and holiday's are overtime and a half.. We were told in about a year we will have 3-4 years steady work, so maybe we will have something to bargain with then..

[Mort]

Too bad your contract wasn't up in a year.

Sounds like you should've gone for a shorter term, 2-3 years. By my math, that 4 years of steady work will run out (if nothing else happens) right when your contract does.

[gant]

We tried to go shorter but they wouldn't budge.. The St. Louis contract for our company is up next year so they didnt want ours to run into theirs, the Eureka plant is up in 2 years and the St. Charles plant is up in 3 years, so we didnt have much of a choice.. we tried to go with a 2 year and they wouldn't go for it.. It's kinda hard to bargain with a millionaire

[concretejoe]

I feel ya gant. It sucks to have to give back what you fought for before. I am going to start negotiating our contract this week. We are in a good position though and we really aren't asking for much. The company will pull it's usual "times are tough" routine, but we are the only company in town that had a decent year. Everyone else is struggling. I foresee a little dragging of the feet, but we'll eventually come to an agreement that nobody likes.

[gant]

We didnt really ask for much either.. and we were the only company that is semi busy right now.. Plus my plant is the only union shop in my county of 216,000 people..