At this point, we would like membership input so we are providing you with the economic proposals received today. We hope that after you take some time to go over them, you will contact us with your thoughts, questions or items of concern. The Company provided us with a counter proposal on the economic portions of the contract, pension, wages and health care. (Click on the "read more" link at the end of this article to see specifics on the Company's health care proposal.) The Company told us that it is very important to get the health changes in order to steer employees into the HMOs vs. the PPOs. The Company stated that the health care proposal was to encourage behavioral changes, control cost and the way people use their health care.
We continued our discussions in regard to Home Agent. The program was developed for emergency situations and the Company has broadened the language for use other than in an emergency. We asked several questions to clarify the language. We plan on developing a counter proposal for Home Agent which we will present next Thursday.
Pension:
- All Employees hired as of 1-1-2007: Improve Company matching contribution from $.333 to $.50 up to 6% of pay (total of 3% of pay)
- Add True-up Company matching contribution feature for eligible employees
- Company match is 100% vested at time of contribution
- Auto enrollment at 4% with 1% annual step increase until employee contribution reaches 6% of pay
- Effective date – First full pay period of January 2010
Health Care:
- For prescription drug benefit on all plans: Reduce Tier 2 maximum prescription drug co-pay from $50 to $40
- For GHC and Dean HMO plans: Eliminate proposed increase for office visit co-pays
- Increase employee contribution to premium from 10% to 11% as of January 2010.
Wages
- Effective April 20, 2009 – 2.5% general wage increase to all classifications
- Effective May 3, 2010 – 2.5% general wage increase to all classifications
- Effective May 2, 2011 – 2.5% general wage increase to all classifications
The proposal on wages, health and pension was the exact same proposal provided to IBEW 2304. We will continue to work closely with IBEW to develop our counter proposals. We will be providing the Company with a counter proposal on the 'big three' next Thursday.