New UE-GE Pact Would Mean 8c to 13¢ Pay
Hike for Most Local 301 Members If OK’ 4
The new agreement arrived at between the company and UE will provide Schenectady
GE workers with wage increases ranging from 8c to 13c an hour. This boost wili equal ap-
proximately 5.18% of current rates. Therefore many piece workers, whose earnings exceed
_ $2.21 an hour will get a larger i increase in terms of dollars and
cents, The negotiated wage’ increase is calculated in two parts.
Pact Improves Health
And Hospital Benefits
The considerable improvement in
the various health and hospitaliza-
tion aspects of the contract is one
of the best features of the new
agreement between UE and Gen-
eral Electric.
The first major improvement is
a $2.50 weekly raise th the sick-
ness and accident benefits paid to
GE workers. However, it is in
various provisions of the hospital-
ization clause that the greatest
number of improvements are made,
The present allowance of $100 for
special hospital services (anes-
thesia, extra nursing care, etc.) is
supplemented by a company agree-
ment to pay 75% of the next $2,000
in special services. ;
Physicians" hospital fees would
be paid in part for the first time.
The pact allows $3 for each hospi-
tal visit (no more than one a day)
. up to a limit of $176.
Maternity benefits are also rais-
ed by approximately 60% in the
new agreement with the allowance
for a normal delivery going from
$100 to $1650.
First there is the.214%
living increase of 3.26% based on
_the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Actually, «
this figure will probably be raised
Consumer Price Index,
somewhat since the final determin-
ation of the cost-of-living hike: will
“be made on the basis of the Sept.
15 index, while the 3.26% was
taken from the July 15 index. The
latest’ figures, just made public,
showed a 0.2% rise in living costs
in one month after July 15.
Payment of the increase will be
retroactive to Sept. 15 and em-
ployees who leave the company be-
tween’ that date and the day on
which the increase is actually
added to the paychecks may get
what.is due to, them by applying to
the company. -
“The new contract also provides
a wage reopener in six months,
This reopener will provide an op-
portunity to negotiate for the two
paid holidays which many workers
lose next year because they fall
on Saturdays. The company indi-
cated strongly that this problem
might be worked out on a local
’ basis. ; '
7
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Friday, September 26, 1952
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Trouble is we have too many people.
“improvement factor’ bcost, which’
must amount to at least 3Yoc.
In addition there is a cost-of-
Contract Analysis
Under the UE constitution,
the recently concluded agree-
ment with General Electric
must be ratified by the members.
Local 301. members: will act
on the pact during the general
membership meeting on Oct. 6.
In order to provide everyone
they will be deciding on, the
EU News in the next two weeks
will attempt to present detailed
analyses of as many phases of
the settlement as. possible.
Accord Runs for One Year
With Renewal Provisions
The new pact is a one-year agreement with provisions for
modification and renewal for another 18 months. In addition,
there is a Wage Reapener and six months,
GE. Drops Attack
On UE Safeguards.
There are no strings attached to
the agreement between UE and
GE. One of the most important
developments which made success-
ful conclusion of the negotiations
possible ‘was the management’s de-
cision-to withdraw its demands for
“certain modifications.”
These modifications would have
given) management the right. to
take disciplinary action, presum-
ably including dismissal, against
workers taking part in so-called
unauthorized stoppages. In the
light of the experience of other un-
ions with management attempts to
destroy contract protections, UE
negotiators felt that this was a
GE effort to open the door to a
similar process. They also be-
lieved that GIS would use such a
provision as an excuse to get rid
of active union members when it
wanted to.
Another withdrawn company
proposal would have made local
seniority supplements superior to
the national UE-GE plantwide sen-
iovity agreement. This would have
given management a weapon with
which to attack the seniority pro-
tections of one grotip of GE work-
ers after another without the un-
ion having the ability to make a
united fight against such attacks,
It was just such company at-
tempts to modify existing con-
tract. benefits that forced workers
in International Harvester, Gen-
eral Cable, Nuttall Westinghouse
and many other companies to take
strike action.
Report Next Week
Next. week’s EU News will carry
cisions as reported by the UE Lo-
eal 801 delegation.
> The short-term contract was one
of the chief bargaining aims of
the union, which was determined
to resist company efforts to. tie
GE workers down to a long con-
tract. Such contracts have proved
to be. invitations “for company
speedup, and, also have made it
impossible for working people to
maintain their standard of living
in the face of rising prices.
Under the’ modification provis-
jon, not very different from that
which made possible the negotia-
tion of this accord, the union can
serve notice of its intention to
modify the contract between ‘Jul
15 and Aug. 15 ‘of next year. Thi
will set the collective bargaining
machinery into motion.
If the contract is not terminated
by either side by its anniversary
date, Sept. 15, 1953, then it will
automatically renew itself until
April 1, 1955,
Better Machinery
Several improvements in the
grievance machinery are made pos-
sible by the UE-GE agreement.
One of the most important of
these is the clause which permits
shop stewards to accumulate their
hour and one-half weekly lost time -
allowance over a month. In this
way, a steward who does not lose
any time in the first week of the
month, but who has a grievance
which requires three hours of lost
time the following week, will be
able to take all the time required
at company expense,
The company also agreed: that in
“some cases, third level erieven@’)
negotiations, now always condud
ed in New York City, will be trans-
ferred to the locality in which the
grievance originates. GI also set
~up -procedure for pertodic review
complete details of convention de-
of New York level grievances
which Uli felt were not being
properly handled.
BLECTRICAL UNION NEWS
with a complete picture of what
REGISTER TODAY and TOMORR
ELECTRICAL UNION
& SCHENECTADY, NEW YORK
Friday, October 3, 1952
Sunbury, Pa.—For the second
time in as many years, the work-
ers of the big Westinghouse plant’
here have crushed an. IUE-CIO
raid. The vote in.an NLRB elec-.
tion was UE—991; 1UE-C1lO—385,
The majority of the 1,600 workers
in the bargaining unit are married
women, and the key issue in the
eléction campaign was the IUE’s
complete sell-out of the seniority
vights of married women in the
‘Westinghouse plants where it has
bargaining. rights The CIO. tried
to obscure this issue with its usual
ved-baiting and smearing. - This
was the second big UE victory in
Westinghouse during the month of
Previously, UE had
‘ Cparee
tled up a two to one victory over
a company union in an election in-
volving the 1,700 salaried workers
at the company’s Essington (Phil-
adelphia) plant.
8 xk kok
Honolulu—An ‘agreement reach-
ed between the International Long-
shoremen’s and Warehousemen’s
Union and 26 big sugar plantation <
operators brought’ an 11¢ hourly
wage increase to 19,000 sugar
workers,
, k kk
Chicago—-1,400 UE members eni-
ployed at the West Pullman plant
of the Ingersoll Products Divis- .
ion of the Borg-Wamnier Corp. went
on strike after the company had
sought to cut rates by up to 2046.
, ko k OF
Akron—-More than 5,000 CIO
rubber workers went out on strike
last week at the Goodyear Aircraft
Corp. plant. The strike followed a
union refusal of a 10¢ hourly in-
crease offered by the company. The
workers had been without a con-
tract since Aug. 8.
C zx kik
-Cincinnati—UE Local 766 has
won a major victory against the
attempts of ‘the Wesche Electric
Co. to force them to work without
‘a- contract. The UE members wen.
this victory on the picket lines. A
10-day. strike was called to force
the company to sign. and put into
affect an agreed-upon pact pro-
viding a substantial wage increase.
Record Crowd Turns Out for Big Field Day,
Lured by Full
A crowd. of close to 5,000, the 1
advantage of beautiful Indian Sum
Park, For 12 hours, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; the festiviti
UE Routs AFL Raiders
in Cable NLRB Ballot
General Cable workers in Rome
swept away a major roadblock
standing in the way of a: settle-
ment -of their 18-week-old strike
last Friday when they crushed a
raid of the AFL electrical workers.
The crusher was applied in an
NLRB election won by UI Local
381 by a-vote of 689 to 491,
Throughout this. weck, UE nego-
tiators were in session with man-
agement in New York in an effort
to reach a settlement of the walk-
out which began in Rome, Los An-
geles and Emeryville, California
on June 1. As long .as the AFL
strikebreakers were in the picture,
management refused to negotiate.
However, once the corporation
realized that there was no way to
split the workers—and they tried
everything in the book — they
changed their minds about bar-
gaining. :
ALL PRESENT, A part of the huge Field Day crowd of nearly 5,000 whieh
_is pictured in front of the pavilion at which'the hot dogs hamburgers, pizzas and lots more ‘
The. crowd was the largest ever to; attend a field day eelebrat sd Se en a ky
members, their families and friends
‘watching a,Little League baseball
game, a wrestling match, and
stage acts, as well as playing ear-
nival games and eating and drink-
ing prodigious quantities of hot
dog's, hamburgers, pizzas, ice cream
soda pop: and beer.
Everything on the food and drink
lst was sold at cost, so that a hot
dog or hamburger. with all the
works went for a thin dime,
A major portion of the interest
was centered onthe 29 big prizes
_ Which were awarded just as night
fell. Wight of these prizes went as
gate awards, while the other 21
were included in a general draw-
ing for which anybody who bought
tickets was eligible.
The biggest single piece of loot,
a $400-plus G.E. refrigerator-deep
freeze combination, went to Wil-
liam Thomas of Building 28. Other
prizes and the winners in the gen-
eral drawing” were:
An automatic washer—Clyde
Wood, 11A Parkview Ct., Troy;
Program, Sun and Top Prizes
argest ever to attend a UE. Local 301 Field Day, took
mer weather Sunday, to enjoy themselves at: Columbian
es were in full swing with union
an electric ironer — Charles
Rose of Bldg. 28; a television
set — Bernard Moczulski, $43
Davis Terrace.
Also a vaciium cleaner—E, Raz-
ewski, 659 Lansing Street; a por-
table radio—Charles Hotchkiss, 95
Division Street; a floor circulator
air conditiohing unit—Donald May,
16 Beech Street, Gloversville; an
electric blanket—William Jansen,
~ RD5, Arbor Avenue; a clock radio
—V. Salvinos, Bldg. 273; five gal-
lons of white paint—Germanus
Lesniewski, 2032 Chepstow Rd;
and an electric mixer—L.'Maron-
gelli, 205 Van Voast. Street. .
Also a machinist’s tool box
~-Madalene Porto, 339 Schence-
tady Street; a pressure cooker
—V. Liburdi, Bldg. 40; a com-
plete’ fishing: tackle box—zl-
eanor Parslow, Middleburg; ‘a
“loaster—Joseph Pidgeon, RD
Lydia Street; a sandwich grill
' —A. and D, Savage, 29 Jeffer-
Continued on page 3
packed Columbian Park on Sunday
ation in Schenectady, (More pictures: on page 4)
New UE:GE Accord
Tightens Fringes
“Some. important improvements
in the vacation clauses of the con-
tract were agreed upon by General
Electric, management and the UE
negotiating committee. These im-
provements generally apply to va-
eation benefits for workers who.
fall ill.. They include the follow-
ing provisions:
If a worker is out ill and returns
to the shop prior to his depart-
ment’s vacation shutdown, he shall
receive full vacation pay at the
time of the shutdown.
‘If the worker retutns after the
shutdown, his vacation shall be
“paid after only one month at work,
_ However, if the worker is unable
‘to complete one month’s work be-
fore the end of the year, he shall
receive vacation pay anyway. ,
_In case a worker is scheduled for
an individual vacation after a shut-
down; he shall receive his vacation’
pay at-the time he goes out.
The seniority safeguards of the
pact were also extended. A new
‘contract clause .provides that a
worker who desires a change of
shift shall- notify the foreman.
Such. notification will guarantee ,
the worker -the next available
opportunity on the shift desired,
with length of service in regard to
others making the same request
the. determining factor.
The company practice of not giv-
ing workers who are out ill their
old jobs back will -be |. virtually
barred under the new pact.
.-On the ‘key problem of pensions,
the: union. is determined to force
management to agree to pay the
social. security increase to all pen-
sioners. Since the contract speci-
fically provides for. at least one
set of negotiations on this issue,
UE will work toward developing a
wide fight against any cheating on
the already low living standards of
men and women who are no longer
able to’ work. .
UE LOCAL 301
- MEMBERSHIP
MEET ENG
2nd SHIFT
Monday, Oct. 6, 1952
- 1:00 P.M, | (before work)
st and 3rd SHIFTS
Monday, Oct. 6, 1952
7:30 P.M.
-.. Leeal 304. Hall -
Erie Blvd. & Liberty St.
2°08 Friday, October 3, 1952
More Pact Details
Last week, the EU News de-
voted a full page to analyzing
the new agreement reached be-
tween GE and the UE national
negotiating committee. This
week, the article on the left
continues this analysis.
Registration will be particularly
important in union towns like
* Schenectady, with all national can-
didates undoubtedly watching the
figures from = such’ communities
carefully.
tion would go a long way toward
strengthening the candidates who
have taken forthright “stands in
opposition to'Taft-Hartley and
other® anti-union legislation, and
for civil rights, decent “social se-
curity laws and the many other
measures supported by labor.
In order to turn out as high a
. UE vote as possible, the union will
.,make use of a sound truck at the
works entrances to remind the GE
‘workers of the importance of reg-
istration. All stewards are. also
A big labor repgistra-~
‘Members Meet Monday |
For Vote on GE Contract
All-important contract. ratification ‘and election of UE
.Local 301 delegates to the District Three Council will be fea-
tures of Monday’s union membership meeting.
Union Urges All to Register
To Vote Today and Tomorrow
UE Local 301 will campaign today and tomorrow, as well
as next Friday and Saturday, to get every one of its mem-
bers to register to Vote in the November election.
urged to talk to the men. and wo-
men in their sections.
Registration hours today and to-
morrow will be from 10 a.m. to 10
p.m. .Next week, the registration
centers will open at 10 am. on
Friday and at 7 am. on Saturdays
They will stay open ‘until 10 p.m.
all days.
Miners Win Pact
The majority of southern soft
coal operators Tuesday signed, a
contract with the United Mine
Workers paralleling that won by
‘the UMW from the. northern op-
erators.
The October meeting will be di- a
vided into two sessions, with’ the
second shift meeting at 1:00 p.m,
and the first and third ‘shifts con-
vening at 7:30 p.m.
The union leadership was par-
ticularly anxious to have a big
turnout for the membership meet-
ing in order to assure a coniplete-
ly democratic decision on the big
quéstion of contract. ratification. .
The members will have every op-
portunity to express their views
on the agreement reached between
the union and. GE, as well as,ito
ask any questions that they have,
before they are asked to vote.
The election of the union’s dele-
gates to the District Three Coun-—
ceil, which groups together repre-
sentatives of 85,000 UE members
in upstate New York, is also re-
garded as highly important. The
district governing hody meets at
least four times a year, and its
decisions: affect all locals in the
area. At the, present. timé, Wil-
linm’ Stewart of Building. 273 is
view president of the district.
Thousands of grievances are handled by UE Local 301
“each year at all levels from the steward up*to final appe
in New York City. To keep members posted, we sha
each week list some of the grievances that have not been
. Bldg. 17: Charles Vartanessian
“has been subject to discrimination
in the issuance of jobs and setups
on index work. The union demands
an end to this discrimination by
assigning this operator to work an
jobs over 42” O.D,
Supervision is using two mater
ial handlers to operate cranes in
Bldg. 15 and the workers operat-
ing shears have to do their own
material handling. ‘The union de-
mands that. the two. material
handlers be recalled to their johs
in the main bay and that nn ad-
ditional crane operator be assigned
to Bldg. 15.
An adjustment in price is de-
manded for the index jobs requir-
ing use of a clamp-on fixture to
compensate for the additional work
involved,
Bldg, 22: Janitors and window
washer's correctly protest the use
of transportation workers to move
office equipment after 4 pm. This
work has always belonged to the
protesting groups and the union
demands an end to management’s
use of truck drivers and helpers to
infringe on the overtime of the
janitors and window. washers,
Bld. 24: M. Gregoire and V.
Sarapilio believe that the work
they are “performing, which in-
volves the repairing of potentio-
meters, belongs in A classification.
The union demands that these two
_ Workers, be properly vated...
Bldg. 46: On Aug. 22, the oval-_
uating committee of Bldg. 41 eval-
uated the Ampldyne Tachometer
settled at the steward-foreman. level and have been re-
( ferred to the executive board-management level.
TC190 test job and gave it a D -
classification. The union helieves
that this classification is much tao
low and results from an incomplete
study of the job, A proper evalu-°
ation is demanded, ‘
S. Sille ‘has been ‘the victim of
continuous intimidation by Fore-
man Link, On numerous occasions
the worker has asked for an up-
grading, ‘but when a dispatchers
job was available at the beginning
of the year, it was given to aman
with less service. Link has gone to
great lengths to fabricate a story
charging that Site was frequently
absent from his job without rea-
son. On top of these false chary-.
es, he has transferred this worker
from the first to third floor in or-
der to be able to keep him under
constant vigilance. When the stew-
ard informed Link that a written
grievance was to be filed, the fore-
man retaliated by giving Sille a
warning notice. This kind of in-
timidation and coercion is intoler-
able, and the union demands im-
mediante correction of the situation,
Bldg. 52: Although John J.
Steverwald is entitled to uperad-
ing, a new man was hired as-a
chipper grinder, a job for which
Steuerwald'is completely qualified.
The union demands a management
investigation,
Bldg. 60: Earl R. Martin has
heen, subject to discrimination and
has--been--publicly -humiliated-with-. -
_ out good. reason in front of his fel-
low workers by Foreman, Crabb.
The union demands such practices
he stopped immediately,
The group working on the TG190
believes that supervision should
assign a B assembler to repair
und veturn apparatus. Currently,
a C nssembler is being used al-
thourh the job requires consider-
able trouble shooting, The use of
u B assembler in the future is de-
manded. :
The test group on the MK 365 3”
50 power drive job feels that the
skills required on this job are at
least equal to those demanded on
the G8, G4 and TG190 jobs, ail of
which. now have A classifications.
The union therefore demands up-
grading of the complaining group
from B to A,
Bldg, 107: Painters’ group is
protesting thé assignment of ma-
sons to do their work. Only re-
cently, the compnny has said’ that
there was mason's work available:
The union demands the masons be
pen work in their own classifica-
ion,
ELECTRICAL UNION NEWS
UNITED ELECTRICAL, RAD
WORKERS OF aNeRiea “(ue}
local 301
be
Oo
Published by tho Editerial Committee
Prostdent.—... nen os ceeed .
Vice-President — 2. seta Senator
Troasurer.
301 LIBERTY ST, SCH NECTADY 5,.N. ¥.
; ELECTRICAL UNION NEWS
amp nnn nh NERA AT ARLE
a eS
ORAY, $0 11'S SAFE... THEN WHAT ARE THOSE
BUZLARDS HANGING AROUND FOR?
-
~ Olan No Action on Dues
Before Polling Everyone
Although a majority of workers in the shop have indi-
cated their approval of the proposed 50c dues raise, no action
will be taken until the opinions of as close to 100% of the
membership of Ul Local 301 as
possible are known.
The canvas, now being conducted
by means of a written petition on
which members can vote either. for
or against the dues raise, has only
reached about half of the union’s
nearly 17,000 members. In a dis-
cussion of the. problem last week,
the executive board pointed out
that many stewards have not yet
met with and polled their groups.
They were urged not to delay this
action, ;
The UE method of canvassing
every member was decided on be-
cause there is no hall in Schenee-
tady big enough to hold our entire
membership. It was therefore felt
that a department by department °
poll was the most democratic
™ans of learning what the mem-
§ want,
This type of union democracy is
in sharp contrast with the policy
of some unions of raising dues
either arbitrarily or by convention
action. For example, the stecl-—
Workers at ALCO were boosted to. °
$3 a month dues by convention ac-
ELECTRICAL UNION NEWS
meer EAA RAINES ERAN ESTADISRG A SAO
tion. And Jim Carey is preparing
to jam*a $1 increase down the
throats of the IUE-CIO members
at the forthcoming Pittsburgh con-
vention of his union,
Convention Adopts Fighting
Program on Every Key Issue
Taken as a whole, the resolutions passed by the UE na-
tional convention make up a fighting program for a democratic
union. The convention took forthright stands on wages, con-
“ditions, political action and all of
the other key issues facing its
» membership.
The wage. issue was naturally”
among the most important under
discussion. The resolution passed
unanimously by the convention
‘stressed the need to expose to the
public’ the” employers’ gangup
against the working people.» The
role that the wage freeze plays in
this plot will be stressed in order
to. show that it is ridiculously un-
fair for wages to be frozen while
profits and prices are- allowed to
skyrocket, : Big
The fight for full job and
pay equality for women and
Negro workers will be intensi-
fied in the next year. Discrim-
ination against workers on ac-
count of race, nationality or
sex is a corporation weapon to
keep all. wages down and to
divide the workers, This wea-
pon must be destroyed. .
In- order to strengthen our
fight for full equality, the un-
ion pledged to rid itself of any
traces. of discrimination so
»that all’ members. will have
equal opportunity to. rise to
posts of leadership within the
union. ; 7
In the field of political action,
the UE made it clear that it
would back no party but would
test every candidate by the same
yardstick—what is his or her stand
on the key issues affecting the
working people? Repeal of Taft-
Hartley stays on the top of the list
of political goals of labor, as does
passage of a fair employment prac-
tices law,
threat against General Electric.
in the IUE dictatorship. setup.
given a chance to take a vote.
Carey’s Democracy— ‘To Heli with Members’
Jim Carey’s complete flouting of all rules of democracy was
underlined this week by the events surrounding the IUE-CIO strike
On Sunday, the largest TUE unit in the GE chain, Local 201,
which vepresents the workers in Lynn, voted overwhelmingly
against strike action and to accept the company contract offer,
Several other IUE locals took similar action.
On Monday, Carey’s conference board niet and announced that
it had authorized strike action “unanimously.”
the failure to pay any attention tothe voice of the membership,
the Carey spokesmen said. that the action of the conference board
was binding because the decision was on a national contract. Lecal
autonomy, which is the governing rule of UE, is completely absent
In Schenectady, the [UE membership at the Knolls wasn’t ever
Instead, IUE “leaders” merely an-
nounced that they “unanimously favored a strike.”
Before. the Lynn vote, Carey said that he would resign rather
than accept the company’s offer. Right now, it appears that Carey
will resign rather than- heed. the will of- his owner. ship, . ee
At this point, there are probably plenty of TUE members who
think that this resignation wouldn’t be a bad idea. é
Questioned about
IUE Pays Price
Jim Carey is bragging of the
TUE-CIO contract with West-
inghouse, ‘but the facts are if
IUE had gained the same pact
as UE got from. GE, it would
have cost the company an addi-
tion’al-$5 million. 7
The average IUE’ member in
Westinghouse got: 2c to 6e less
an. hour in wage increases.
Carey made no improvements in
pensions or insurance.
This heavy price was paid for
two. holidays next year, the
same:-two holidays UE will have
a chance to negotiate for at the
beginning of the year,
Full story next week.
Scab Drive Fails
To Dent UE Lines
A desperate attempt by Interna-
tional Harvester President John
McCaffrey to organize an expedi-
tion of scabs to break the -UE
_ picket lines: fell flat on-its face as:
not more than 50 of the more than
30,000 strikers ‘responded to. the
boss’ “call to duty.”
McCaffrey. flew into. Chicago
from Europe and called Iuncheon
und dinner meetings of the fore-
men where plans were made to or-
ganize scabs.
But last Monday, when the big
push through the picket lines was
scheduled, the police who were to
escort the scabs through the picket
lines far outnumbered the hand-
ful of would-be strikebreakers.
Even the anti-union Chicago
newspapers, which had given big
play to the move, had to admit its
complete failure.
‘Field Day
(Cortinued from Page 1)
son Street; and a mantle clock
—Patsy Candela, Bldg. 60.
Also a steam iron—August F.
Valeav, 1209 Third Ave; a glass
fly rod—C, Canaughty, Bldg. 278;
a room heater—George Witze, 2637
Hamburg Street, and a® kitchen
clock—Gertrude F. Sindoni, 837
Perry Street,
Winner of the top gate prize,
a beautifully equipped Black
Panther bicycle, was Mrs,
Grace Tabor of .248 Duane
Avenue. Other gate prize win-
ners were George Dijon, Judy
Schaffer, Michael Alois, Doug-
--las: €adran, Mrs.- Bernice: Rad-
iel, Mrs. Edward Summers and
Peter Museanelli,
Friday, October 3,.1952 © 3
