And now again we see Trimet playing the exact same game with its latest phony 'press release' regarding the current state of 'negotiations'.
Union Puzzled Over TriMet’s Latest Press Release
“We’ve presented TriMet with a health and welfare proposal and received
a strangely mixed response,” says transit union president Bruce Hansen.
He’s responding to TriMet’s threat to end negotiations unless the Union
bargains health and welfare and wages over two days next week. The
parties still have many more issues on the table, according to Hansen.
TriMet has been slow in providing necessary information. Documents it
promised in September weren’t provided until January. Health insurance
information was also slow in coming. “We didn’t receive accurate health
insurance data until the second week in December, and even now, it’s
incomplete. We had our experts analyze it and discovered that TriMet has
been paying too much for it,” says Hansen. “If the employees intend to
pay a portion of the costs, it only makes sense that we get a say in
what is being bought.”
The Union proposed working collaboratively with TriMet in a joint
trust. The trust would be charged with finding cost-saving approaches to
providing health benefits. “And that’s where it gets really puzzling,”
Hansen said. “TriMet’s general manager, Neil McFarlane, told two union
officials that he’s interested in the idea of a collaborative, joint
trust approach,” Hansen said, “Then, we get to the bargaining table and
TriMet negotiator’s, Randy Stedman, states that TriMet will never agree
to sharing control over the selection of health benefits.” Such joint
trusts are common in the area.
When asked about TriMet’s demand that these two important subjects be
resolved in the next few days, Hansen noted. “You have the Portland
Teachers, the state workers, and any number of employees and employers
taking weeks on these issues. He’s not being realistic. And, our joint
trust proposal has not been given fair consideration.”
When the Union repeatedly asked for more bargaining dates, it got stonewalled. As late as December 27, 2014,
Hansen was pointing out to Stedman that the number of bargaining dates
Stedman offered didn’t allow enough time for bargaining over all the
proposals still remaining unaddressed. See attached letter.
Hansen questions certain statements made by TriMet. “You know, TriMet's
press release told the media that the parties have bargained for 32
days. Yet Stedman himself knows that isn’t true. Most of those dates
were used by TriMet to explain their four hundred plus contract changes.
No bargaining took place. This is a fact that Stedman has previously
admitted, in writing.” See attached letter.
(click on pics for better view)
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