2012 Contract RATIFIED by IBEW System Council U8 membership!

IBEW membership from Local Unions 433, 626, 682, 1412, and 1491 collectively ratified the proposed contract. The agreement will be effective December 5^th, 2011 and extend through December 2^nd, 2012 for a one year duration.

Balloting times and locations for the Contract vote on Friday, December 2nd, 2011

On December 2nd 2011……

• 682.1  (Ocala/Inverness) will conduct their voting at the VFW in Lecanto. The voting times will occur between 7:00 am and 22:00 pm. This is the exact same location as the 682.1 regular meeting is held. It may be located in an axillary room at times during the day.

• 682.2 (Monticello and northern areas) will conduct voting at Crawfordville Operations Center, Odena Operations Center, High Springs Operations Center, and the regular meeting hall in Monticello. The ballots will be voted between 5:00 pm and 9:00 pm.

• 682 (St. Petersburg/Pinellas county) will conduct the vote between 8:00 am and 9:00 pm at the regular meeting site; the Elks Lodge on San Christopher in Dunedin.

You can vote at any local in the state if you so choose. You must be a member of the IBEW to cast a ballot.  Locals 1491, 1412, 626, and 433 will also conduct voting on Friday. You will have to check their websites to find out the exact times or contact their officers.

Your vote counts! Please come out and participate in the process of democracy with us.

Unfortunately there will not be any absentee balloting during the contract vote. Please read down further in the blog for more information.

Scott Demetree, Business Manager, Local 682

Contract explanation meeting schedules

There will be a contract explanation meeting on Tuesday evening November 29th for Unit 682.2 in Monticello. Brother Bob Hanna will conduct the meeting at the Monticello Operations Center. Scott Demetree and Ed Mobsby will also attend via telephone conferencing. The meeting time will be 7:00 pm.

There will also be a contract explanation meeting on Wednesday evening for Unit 682.1 at the VFW post on Carl G. Rose Hwy. This is the normal meeting hall location for 682.1. The meeting will be conducted by Brother Dave Ascough. Scott Demetree and Joel Bebermeyer will also be attending. The meeting will begin at 7:00 pm.

There will be a contract explanation meeting at the regular Local 682 Union hall (Elk’s Lodge) on San Christopher in Dunedin. This meeting will begin at 7:00 pm on Thursday December 1st. This meeting will be conducted by Brother Joel Bebermeyer; Scott Demetree will also be attending that meeting.

You can find Local Union 682′s meeting place addresses by clicking here and then selecting “location”.

Wiengarten Rights poll

Please read and thoroughly understand the following document:

http://www.apwu.org/dept/ind-rel/sc/070605irweingarten.pdf

2011 Negotiations produces Company final offer.

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

The Union and the Company have successfully concluded the 2011 negotiations. After some late night negotiating on Thursday November 17th, the Company presented their last and final offer to the Union on Friday morning.

The resulting contract is one that the System Council U8 Committee has recommended for ratification.

As soon as the package is proof read and put together it will be posted. Until that time please be patient. The terms will be published as soon as possible. I will hopefully have that documentation in my hands to post by Tuesday evening November 22nd.

Information meeting dates and the official contract ratification voting date will also be released as soon as they are available.

I would like to thank everyone for their support, advice, and encouragement while negotiating for our Local Union. This has been a great honor and privilege for me.

In brotherhood,

Scott Demetree, Business Manager Local Union 682

Contract Proposals Exchanged

Please see the contract proposals exchanged by the System Council U8 and the Company on October 4th, 2011 @ our ibew682.org website.

Executive Board Appointments

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

There was a special Executive Board meeting called for the purposes of filling the Business Manager position that was just recently vacated by Brother Ed Mobsby. Brother Mobsby was elected to be the Business Manager of System Council U-8. He resigned as Business Manager of Local 682 on Monday September 27th, 2011.

The Eboard voted to appoint the following positions on Tuesday September 28th, 2011:

Business Manager – Financial Secretary; Scott Demetree
President; Joel Bebermeyer
Vice-President; Bob Rommelt
Executive Board Member; Bill Bennett

Thank you for supporting the Officers of your local and all of your fellow Union Brothers and Sisters of the IBEW.

Welcome home from hurricane Irene efforts.

Brothers and Sisters,

Hopefully all of our Union members are either home or on their way home from the Carolinas.

I hope there were no injuries or no-misses to report resulting from storm restoration efforts while restoring service to the customer affected by hurricane Irene.

Please let me know about your personal experiences during this restoration effort; both the good and the bad.

As always, our local is proud of our IBEW participation in these epic efforts. It is the individual’s successful contributions that equal the sum total of our achievement.

The customers may not know it, but they love your professionalism and commitment to excellence.

Scott Demetree
President, IBEW Local Union 682

Thank you storm responding Brothers and Sisters!!

To all of our Brothers and Sisters helping the unfortunate victims of the tornado outbreak, please stay focused on your job, accomplish your difficult work, and return home to us in good health. No extra bravado! Just get the job done. The conditions that you are in now are some of the most challenging that you face as professionals.

Thank you from all of us at Local 682 for all of your contributions to our fellow Americans so that they can return to routine regular life as soon as they are able and start rebuilding their communities.

God Bless,

Scott Demetree

What should you be fighting for?

The National Labor Relations Act

The NLRA was enacted by Congress in 1935. It was hailed at the time and for many years after as the Magna Carta of America labor.

Previously, employers had been free to spy on, interrogate, discipline, discharge, and blacklist union members. But in the 1930′s workers began to organize militantly. A great strike wave in 1933 and 1934 included citywide general strikes and factory takeovers. Violent confrontations occurred between workers trying to form unions and the police and private security forces defending the interests of anti-union employers. Some historians believe that Congress adopted the NLRA primarily in the hopes of averting greater, possible revolutionary, labor unrest.

The NLRA guaranteed workers the right to join unions without fear of management reprisal. It created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to enforce this right and prohibited employers from committing unfair labor practices that might discourage organizing or prevent workers from negotiating a union contract.

The NLRA’s passage galvanized union organizing. Successful campaigns soon followed in the automobile, steel, electrical, manufacturing, and rubber industries. By 1945, union membership reached 35% of the work-force. In reaction, industrialists, and other opponents of organized labor sought to weaken the NLRA. They succeeded in 1947 with the passage of the Taft-Hartly Act, which added provisions to the NLRA allowing unions to be prosecuted, enjoined, and sued for a variety of activities, including mass picketing and secondary boycotts.

The last major revision of the NLRA occurred in 1959, when Congress imposed further restrictions on unions in the Landrum-Griffin Act.

Key Provisions

The most important sections of the NLRA are Sections 7, 8, and 9.

Section 7, is the heart of the NLRA. It defines protected activity. Stripped to its essential, it reads:

Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection.

Section 7 applies to a wide range of union and collective activities. In addition to organizing, it protects employees who take part in grievances, on-the-job protests, picketing, and strikes.

Section 8 defines employer unfair labor practices.

Five types of conduct are made illegal:

• Employer interference, restraint, or coercion directed against union or collective activity (Section 8(a)(1))
• Employer domination of unions (Section 8(a)(2))
• Employer discrimination against employees who take part in union or collective activities (Section 8(a)(3))
• Employer retaliation for filing unfair-labor-practice charges or cooperating with the NLRB (Section 8(a)(4))
• Employer refusal to bargain in good faith with union representatives (Section 8(a)(5))

Threats, warnings, and orders to refrain from protected activities are forms of interference and coercion that violate Section 8(a)(1).

Disciplinary actions, such as suspensions, discharges, transfers, and demotions, violate Section 8(a)(3).

Failures to supply information, unilateral changes, refusals to hold grievance meetings, and direct dealings violate Section 8(a)(5).

Section 8 also prohibits union unfair labor practices, which include, according to legal construction, failure to provide fair representation to all members of the bargaining unit.

Section 9 provides that unions, if certified or recognized, are the exclusive representatives of bargaining unit members. It prohibits the adjustment of employee grievances unless a union representative is given an opportunity to be present, and establishes procedures to vote on union representation.

The NLRA sets out general rights and obligations. Enforcing the Act in particular situations is the job of the NLRB.