The Only Thing They Have to Sell Is...Fear Itself.

Heather Morris
Meramec Plant

As the mid-term elections draw nearer, I find myself barely being able to watch CNN any more. At almost every waking hour of the day, their headlines read BREAKING NEWS!!! Terror alert, war, war, war, more deaths, and the terrorists are coming to get you. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Allow me to interpret what they’re really saying to you....read on for the full article.
 

Tick, Tick ... Boom! Terror alert:
America's pension time bomb is ready to explode

Lynn Sherman
Chief Steward GCMS

From Fortune Magazine:
Some of the nastiest conflicts in America's future have recently begun to reveal themselves. Let's call them, broadly, the pension wars. They will be fought on a wide range of battlefields, involving not just workers and their employers but also governments at all levels, regulators, accountants, and taxpayers. And these wars will be bitter--because the combatants will be desperate....read on for the full article.

Notice from IBB Local 484

Dan Sweet
Business Representative

GCMS Negotiations Update 5-17-06

Lynn Sherman
Chief Steward GCMS

Brothers and Sisters,
I'm sorry to say we have come to a point when 2 thirds (or more) of us will be leaving permanently. I know this is welcome news to some of you who have not had an opportunity to bid back to your home plant and I know that many of you recognize the importance of a traveling crew and the leverage it gives us in keeping a lot of our customary work in the hands of Local 148 craftsmen and women and in fact do not want to leave GCMS...read on

Political Action Alert

Dan Sweet
Business Representative

From The American Federation of Television & Radio Artists:
Keep performer fines and license forfeiture out of the "Indecency" Act....read on

GCMS Negotiations Update

Lynn Sherman
Chief Steward GCMS

As of 5-8-06 Ameren plans to reduce our GCMS workforce to a level far below what we currently have. They say this reduction is needed due to the protracted time between Major Unit Outages on their new long range outage schedule. They want to reduce all our electricians and non-certified repairmen while keeping only 18 certified repairmen and 18 machinists. This amounts to approximately 100 positions on GCMS being lost. Those that are reduced will be returned to their home plants and may face additional cuts at the plant level. All the specifics have yet to be determined. What is known is this; Ameren’s plan is to have all future Major Unit Overhauls in all four fossil plants in Missouri handled by outside contractors. I find it interesting that at the Newton Power Plant in Illinois, at the time of this writing, the company is way behind on that outage schedule because of the lack of available, qualified contractors to do the job! As a stockholder I find it very distressing to see my company staking the future of its power plants on a labor force that they have absolutely no control over while at the same time reducing the most qualified, flexible group of skilled men and women that they have ever had at their disposal!

I’m not sure what the future will hold for all of us in Local 148 but one thing I am certain about; we all are in this together and together we will get through it.

UPDATE 5-11-01: Per my conversation with Don Giljum last night, it seems we have come to an understanding with the company as to how the GCMS reduction will take place.....read on

Don Giljum
Business Manager

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called it “a tragedy for working people.” He was talking about the defection of matrix labor unions from the AFL-CIO that occurred this past summer. The Teamsters, Laborers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Service Employees, UNITE HERE (hotel and restaurant workers) and the Farm Workers all left the fold to start their own federation. The Carpenters, who had already been outside the AFL-CIO, joined these unions in a new organization called “Change to Win.”.....read on

Health & Welfare, Safety & Training
Great News: Ameren Medical Insurance Premiums Drop

Keith Linderer
Business Representative

As I have been reporting at our union meetings over the past several months, Ameren members will see their medical insurance premiums drop substantially when new rates kick in on January 1....read on

Fossil Plant Operations & Maintenance, GCMS
Update on Grievances and Arbitrations

Tom Munster
Business Representative

Local 148 is processing various grievances and arbitrations at this time. A summary of these cases is provided below......read on

Eric Mooshegian
Business Representative

Callaway’s “Turn Around” plan has generated a lot of controversy and two unfair labor practice charges in recent weeks. We are seeing a more confrontational approach instead of a collaborative approach. The problem is management feels bargaining with the union is a time-consuming process, and they don’t have the time. So instead of turning around the plant, they are turning the plant upside down....read on

Two Lakeside District employees as well as two members of IBEW 1439 were recently suspended for allegedly violating the company’s new “Rules to Live By” safety policy. While in Louisiana working to restore power after hurricane Katrina, a Trouble Serviceman Leader and a Trouble Serviceman came across a circuit that was hot....read on

Dan Sweet
Business Representative

Our 12-person maintenance group at the Scott Air Force Base hospital overwhelmingly ratified a new 5-year agreement with JanTech this past August. The contract, effective October 1, 2005 through September 30, 2010, includes a wage increase of 21.25 percent over the life of the agreement. This amounts to just over 4 percent per year.....read on

New BLS statistics show union workers fair much better than nonunion workers. I thought it would be beneficial to share with you some statistics from a new report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).  Eighty-eight percent of private sector union workers have access to retirement through their jobs, compared to only 56 percent of nonunion workers.....read on