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| Guild President Bill O'Meara addresses members who showed up to watch contract talks with S&P management on July 23. Seated at table are Guild Bargaining Committee members Lan Lecour (left) and Randye Gilliam, Guild unit chair. - See more at: http://www.nyguild.org/standard-poors-news-details/items/sp-members-jam-session-as-guild-stresses-priorities-in-talks.html#sthash.Om1gJmcw.dpuf |
With an overflow crowd of Guild members on
hand -- despite Standard & Poor's best efforts to keep them out --
New York Guild negotiators this week restated the importance of
employment and retirement security as both sides reviewed their
respective positions after higher level principals from both sides
joined the talks.
They came despite management obstacles
With an overflow crowd of Guild members on hand, Guild negotiators on
Tuesday restated the importance of employment and retirement security
as both sides reviewed their respective, often conflicting positions
after higher level principals from both sides joined the talks.
For the first time since negotiations began in March, S&P Guild
members, many sporting red Guild T-shirts, came to watch their
co-workers on the bargaining committee take part in the process that –
subject to members’ ratification – eventually will determine their
working conditions for the next few years.
The turnout of some 60 Guild members for the talks at 55 Water St.
came despite the best efforts of S&P management to deter observers
from attending. After requesting on two occasions that the talks be
moved to the midtown offices of its outside counsel, management
negotiators abruptly moved the meeting from a very accessible conference
room to one on a floor with no Guild-covered employees that most
members cannot access and arrived 40 minutes late for the negotiations.
Undaunted, members came anyway, jamming the small conference room
while they listened to a summary of the status of the talks, current
Guild proposals and the list of items on which there are tentative
agreements.
FROM THE GUILD, A SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND
The
members heard New York Guild President Bill O’Meara, who joined the
talks for the first time, tell management, “We believe our longstanding
good relations with S&P can continue and we believe we can reach an
agreement that supports the continued success of the company, while
protecting our members.”
O’Meara pointed out that “with the uncertain future of Social
Security and the volatility of the stock market, a retirement plan that
guarantees lifetime payments is key to retirement security for our
members.”
He said that the Guild has offered a number of alternatives to
S&P’s proposal to trade Guild members’ defined benefit plan for a
401(k) plan. The Guild continues to offer ways to address the retirement
plan issues and the Guild and its actuaries will continue to make every
effort to help find a way to resolve the pension issue, O’Meara said.
FROM MANAGEMENT, NOT SO MUCH
Showing less
willingness to find common ground was Bernard Plum, one of S&P’s
more senior outside attorneys, who also joined the talks for the first
time. “Any new collective bargaining agreement must include freezing the
defined benefit pension plan and address bumping rights,” he declared.
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| Bernie Plum |
Plum reiterated numerous times that “until there is substantial
movement from the Guild on the company’s pension and job security
proposals, there will be no movement on the Guild’s proposals.”
He dismissed some Guild proposals as unimportant distractions that
“clog up the process and will go nowhere.” Plum dismissed Guild
Representative Bob Daraio’s assertions that replacing experience-based
pay step-increases with discretionary "merit" pay has not been
successful and that members want the wage step-ups back as a “waste of
time,” adding that S&P would not consider “going backward.”
Plum said, “bumping is very disruptive and it is unreasonable to
expect S&P to go through months of inefficient job changes and
retraining. The current process is unsustainable and inappropriate for
any modern workplace.”
O’Meara responded by insisting that “job security is very important
and bumping is rooted in fairness.” He said that “the Guild will
continue to negotiate toward a solution and a fair and equitable
collective bargaining agreement.”
The Guild Bargaining Committee would like to thank the members who
came to observe the negotiations and remind everyone that observers are
welcome at all bargaining sessions. Contact Randye Gilliam to get a Guild T-shirt, wear it and use it to cover the back of your office chair in solidarity with your Guild co-workers.
The next negotiating session will be at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 6 at
Proskauer, (management’s law firm), 11 Times Square (corner of 8th Avenue and 41st Street).
Members wishing to observe the session must give their names to Randye Gilliam beforehand.
