Well said, tech.
That's my point Eric. How can you say you are working towards increasing our wages and benefits when it has been proven in the last year of wages going DOWN after you took over from Atlantic? Can you explain that?
First off I apologize for such a late reply to this question as I wanted to research the matter thoroughly before I gave an answer. Now over the past couple of weeks I have been making inquiries to what was being paid prior to Bartlett taking over at the Xcel sites. I’ve heard a myriad of rates, diem and bonus structures. From what I can deduce out of the different answers I have received is that yes wages have gone down, diem was increased and the bonus monies have remained the same or even have been increased, but are being paid under different criteria than what was stated above (returnee, safety & long term retention).
As discussed yesterday via private e-mail you hit the nail on the head when you stated it all had something to do with the existing USA Alliance Agreement. Bartlett has never intentionally "low balled" a bid. That is not in your best interest or Bartlett's. However, these contracts are competitively bid. Several factors affect bid pricing and pay rates. The requirements contained in the utility's Request For Proposal (RFP) often reflect the economic climate and the utility's own efforts to control costs; this inevitably affects bid responses and ultimately, pay rates.... On an overall basis, Bartlett has been successful with most utilities in negotiating wage and per diem increases on behalf of our technicians. We intend to continue this policy. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee of success in any particular case. Each instance is a separate negotiation affected by utility specific economic concerns and perceptions.
That is where Bartlett and the NPUA differ…Bartlett fully admits that we cannot guarantee higher wages as we are at the whim of the current economic climate and our clients perceptions of what is allowable where as the NPUA recklessly states they will guarantee $35/hr on every contract if they get voted in. Trust me as a recruiter, as a 21 year member of this industry and as a Bartlett I would love to pay $35/hr for 3.1 SHP on each and every contract we have, as would every member of this company’s management team.
I don’t know how many times I have to state the obvious – the more we pay, the more you make. The more you make the more likely you will stay in the business. The more we pay, the more attractive this industry is for new technicians to want to get into it. The more people getting in and staying in this business the easier it is for Bartlett to staff and meet our contractual commitments. And finally the more we pay, the more we can bill, which of course means the more we can make.
Now for the second part – Bartlett holds the negotiating power with the utility, not the NPUA. The NPUA does not have a contract with the utility so they can promise $35/hr all they want, it will not guarantee that Bartlett’s clients will let us bill enough to pay that much. If our client only lets us bill enough to pay $27/hr, guess what, NPUA or not all you are going to get is $27/hr. The only thing that the NPUA can guarantee is that you will not be able to keep all of the money that you make while earning $27/hr because you will have to pay not only your set dues but also a % of what you have worked so hard to earn.
Well there is my answer. Now I have a question for the pro-union side. Here is the hypothetical situation - John Doe is a card carrying member of the NPUA and lives next to Plant A, a non NPUA, non Union site. Now Plant B, an NPUA Unionized site is having an outage the same time as Plant A. If John Doe is offered and subsequently turns down a position at Plant B, the NPUA site, so that he could work Non-Union at his home site how does that affect Johns standing w/in the Union? Similar situation except both sites are NPUA and Plant B shuts down and staffs 3-4 weeks prior to Plant A and also overlaps Plant A by 3 weeks. John Doe is offered a slot at Plant B, but he turns it down trying to wait for Plant A. Since he turned down “Union” work does he go to the bottom of the Union call list, possibly being too far down the list to be offered a slot at Plant A because he turned down a Union gig at Plant B.
I’ve been asked these types of questions by numerous techs that for some reason think I have some insight as to how this “Union” will treat them in these circumstances so I figured I’d go to the best source I have at available – the Forum on Nukeworker.com (there’s a little plug for you Mike). I would have gone to the NPUA website itself, but since one can not post on the NPUA website w/out becoming a site member, which I see no reason to ever do especially in light of how the top level Union Officers continuously spread lies and half truths about Bartlett, I have decided to keep the conversation going on nukeworker.com.
As Always,
Eric