Each member of the National Executive Committee, composed of the above-mentioned officials, as well as the Secretary-Treasurer and five regional coordinators, appoints a union member to the Core Committee. MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International have rejected the tentative agreement with Kellogg`s and have continued their strike. However, the Advisory Committee for Basic Negotiations disagreed with its assessment, found the provisional agreement unacceptable and voted against it. As far as I know, the provisional agreement was rejected by the Basic Committee by a majority of 9 votes to 4. Our internal negotiation process is designed to keep the Basic Bargaining Advisory Committee informed of any newly agreed changes before the proposed preliminary agreement is put to a vote. I`ve lost all respect for these board members and learned an important lesson: don`t blindly trust favorites. Obviously, others came to the same conclusion, because most of these people were then rejected. I do not care why this current base voted not to accept the provisional treaty. We have a real system of checks and balances, unlike in 2011, when everyone was in cahoots to bow down to please the USPS negotiators.
I am looking at Bell`s article. Let us move on to interest arbitration instead of lobbying and posing because elections are imminent. I believe his actions have undermined our artisanal negotiators, run counter to the APWU`s democratic process, and have also compromised the union in the future. This is unacceptable. This behavior of President Dimondstein only serves the management and undermines our elected artisans in the fulfillment of their responsibility to negotiate on behalf of their artisan members. It undermines our craft representatives when management thinks they can simply bypass them or go straight to President Dimondstein over their heads. This shows a lack of leadership and shows disagreement in front of management. This is unacceptable. Such action undermines the ability of the union and our public servants to effectively represent their respective artisanal members. The facts are quite simple.
The employer operates a commercial laundry whose employees are represented by the union. The parties have come together to negotiate a collective agreement that will succeed it. One proposal concerned the use of apprentices. The apprentice proposal consisted of 3 sections. The employer and the union provisionally agreed on section 1 of the proposal and section 3, but not on section 2. Section 2 concerned the question of whether the employer would pay the trainees. The employer`s proposal regarding Article 2 in the negotiations left the amount to be paid for trainees empty. The union defended itself by saying that there could be no violation because of the dispute over whether the parties intended to include section 2 in the final agreement. This argument is that of contract law: there were no differences of opinion on the apprenticeship programme. In particular, the union claimed that the entire apprenticeship program – the 3 sections – was “meaningless” if it did not include Section 2. Since the parties have agreed on Sections 1 and 3, they must intend to include Section 2.
The judge summarily rejected this argument: “If the union had believed that this was the case, it could have communicated exactly that feeling before ratifying the agreement.” The judge also noted that the employer had made it clear that it was rejecting all proposals that had not been addressed in its last, best and last offer. The ALJ found that the parties had held a meeting of minds and that the union`s failure to implement the redacted version of the collective agreement constituted a violation of Article 8(b)(3). Kellogg announced on December 2 that it had reached a tentative agreement with the union on a new employment contract after workers went on strike for nearly two months. However, this agreement did not last long. To date, no new agreements have been reached to address the Core Committee`s concerns, and the parties are now at an impasse. This is only the second time in the history of the APWU that the Mass Bargaining and Dossier Advisory Committee has rejected an agreement in principle. The only other time a rank-and-file committee rejected an agreement in principle was in 1978, when the APWU, the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Postal Mail Handlers negotiated together. At the time, the Trade Union Advisory Committee rejected the provisional agreement, mainly because of a ceiling (limit) for the cost of living adjustment (COLA). The final outcome of the contract was determined by arbitration, during which the arbitrator annulled COLA but amended the provisions relating to the prohibition of dismissal. The union submitted the last, the best and the last to the ratification of the workers.
Employees voted to accept the offer. The union then stated that it would draft the collective agreements for review and signature by the employer […].
