GE, unions agree to tentative labor contract

By ROBB FREDERICK, Erie Times-News robb.frederick@timesnews.com


Negotiators for the General Electric Co. and its 15,200 union workers have agreed to a tentative labor contract, company officials said late Sunday night.
The plan will affect pay, pension and health benefits for those workers, including 3,200 employees of GE Transportation in Lawrence Park Township.
Details of the agreement were not available Sunday night.
The unions have until June 30 to ratify the contract, the company said.
Local organizers likely will meet today and Tuesday to consider whether or not to accept it, said Roger Zaczyk, the president of Local 506 of the United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers, in Lawrence Park. He would not discuss the contract when reached by phone Sunday night.
Negotiators had been meeting in New York City since May 23. Sunday put them under extra pressure: The previous 4-year contract expired at midnight.
The talks involved two national unions, including the UE, and several smaller local groups. Their members are spread across 80 GE work sites.
"This was a hard-fought negotiations," said Bob Santamoor, the chairman of the International Union of Electronic Workers/Communications Workers of America conference board. "We've made significant strides from where we started to reach a deal that we can bring back to the members."
Much of the late bargaining centered on health costs. GE had wanted to move union employees to a higher-deductible insurance plan called Health Choice. That plan would replace the unions' existing $15 co-pay with a higher deductible and would require employees to pay more once the deductible was met.
It is not yet clear how that point was settled.
The company did withdraw its demand that retirees pay for up to 10 percent of their prescription drug plan, the UE reported. GE also increased its wage offer, which included a lump-sum payment in the first year of the contract, followed by pay increases in each of the following three years.
The company had argued that high labor costs were making its rail business less competitive. Erie's GE employees are paid twice as much as those at Caterpillar Inc., which also makes locomotives, the company had said during negotiations.
GE moved to cut those costs even before the contract was in hand. In May, the company announced that it will build a $96 million locomotive plant in Fort Worth, Texas, creating more than 500 jobs in a primarily nonunion environment.
GE Transportation has added nearly 1,000 workers in recent months. But local union officials worry that more work could be shifted to Texas.
The agreement reached Sunday "also contains several disappointments," John Hovis, the UE general president, said in a statement, which was released by GE. "However, given the current economic climate, overall it's an agreement we can support."
ROBB FREDERICK can be reached at 870-1733 or by e-mail.