Strattec
Security Plant
Grievance
Rep Report
By Karl Schneider, Grievance Rep
A
lot of people have been asking your Bargaining Committee about layoffs. As of
November 6, 2001 the Company does not plan to have any layoffs and they are
monitoring the schedule daily. Our build schedule has been 195,000 to 200,000
lock sets per week. If, by the end of any given week, things are slow in your
department, I would expect some form of training to be taking place.
Change
in health insurance – By now everyone should know that Compcare forced us out
of their insurance plan. What Compcare did was unprecedented. It was also
unethical, immoral and just short of criminal. Compcare put their plan into
motion by notifying the Company. The Company then notified Union leadership. We
did not get answers to our questions until the meetings that were held on
October 31st and November 2nd. This was after the October membership meeting.
The Union’s role in this mess was to protect membership from 1. Rate increases
2. Access from our current provider to the new provider 3. Loss of or
significant changes in the network. 4. Loss of coverage with having a new open
enrollment. 5. To inform membership
what was happening, have answers to what was happening and to do it as quickly
as possible. To make membership aware without having any answers did not seem
logical. Your Local leadership was able to get answers to the questions and
inform membership within 25 working days.
To
address the above problems: 1. There will be no increase in premiums through
June, 2002. 2. We did lose access to Aurora facilities. 3. The new
administrator, United Health Care, was willing to match benefits at nearly 100%.
4. Compcare Option 1 will be replaced by Select-EPO One Plan. That has expanded
to include providers that were in Option 4 and is a huge benefit to our members.
There should be no insurance coverage issues as long as people get their open
enrollment papers in, which is from now until November 30th. There will be
representatives from United Health Care (UHC) here on November 12th through
November 16th to help with the open enrollment.
The working relationship with Strattec
Security Corp. – Since the strike ended and we returned to work on June 25th,
the environment at Strattec has changed. I did not know what to expect, but I
did expect things to be different. Since then there has been a lot of things
said and written covering a variety of emotions and topics. I feel we are making
progress in a positive direction working together to resolve common interest
issues. I also think that a healing process has started to take place between
the Company and the Union. Some examples are: The Company and the Union coming
together in the insurance crisis. Another example is we were able to settle a
discharge case without arbitration. I was able to settle some overtime
grievances before the 3rd stage and some others were settled after the 3rd
stage. Also, the Company’s willingness to get involved jointly with the Union
for the upcoming United Way Campaign.
United
Way – The Company sent 4 members, Tony Hull, Cecelia Marshall, Karen Kramer
and Mary Ann Willingham to the United Way Labor Kick-Off Dinner. These 4
volunteers, as representatives of the Local and Strattec, received special
recognition as new volunteers to the United Way community. The Milwaukee Labor
Council President John Goldstein introduced them and they received an
appreciative round of applause.
We
have not had a campaign of this magnitude since the spin-off. They will be
canvassing the last week in November for the United Way and all new money (any
amount that was not donated last year) will be matched by an anonymous donor.
This is an excellent opportunity to help our community. When Tony, Cecelia,
Karen or Mary approach you for donations, I ask that you treat them well and
give from your heart. Remember that this helps our community. There will be more
details coming in other publications about the pledge drive.
I
would like to congratulate Michael Klebba on being selected as the recipient of
the 2001 WCTC Machinist Apprenticeship Student Recognition Award. This award is
presented to one machinist each year and Michael was recognized by the WCTC
Machinist Apprenticeship Advisory Committee. Once again, congratulations!
In
solidarity,
Karl
Schneider
