First Contract Vote at Texas Utility Brings
in New Members
April 24, 2008
Nerves were on edge at a newly-organized unit at TXU, Texas’ largest utility, when the company was sold to a private equity firm in April 2007. Less than a year later, nearly 500 new members of Dallas Local 69 are celebrating a new contract and on April 11, a group of dispatchers at the utility’s Oncor subsidiary voted 24 to 20 for IBEW representation.
In February, new members overwhelmingly ratified a three-year contract providing for a first-year wage increase of 4 percent followed by two 3.75 percent gains. The agreement lifts linemen at Oncor from the bottom of the state’s journeyman scale to the top quarter by the end of the contract.
“Sometimes we organize and two years later, workers are discouraged because we still have no contract,” says Seventh District International Representative George Crawford, who led negotiations with Energy Future Holdings Inc., the owner of TXU’s assets. “But this agreement will really take off with other workers wanting to join IBEW,” says Crawford.
Even the ratification votes in small towns across Texas were an organizing opportunity. “The only requirement for voting was joining the union,” says Crawford. “To top it off, we have already started holding labor-management meetings on the importance of workers and managers respecting the contract in the field.”
In December 2006, after a contentious campaign between IBEW and TXU, workers, voted 254 to 218 for union representation. (See “IBEW Takes on Subcontracting at Texas Utility and Wins 254-218,” IBEW Journal, Jan./Feb. 2007). The driving force in the vote was the workers’ fears that their job functions would be subcontracted.
During the organizing, the utility also opposed the union’s proposal to place new workers under a single global agreement with other existing members in Local 69, which has a 60-year history representing power distribution workers.
In the new agreement, the company agrees to recognize the workers’ rights to representation by Local 69. And the employer agrees not to contract with union busting law firms as it did during the original campaign or to hold captive audience meetings during union internal organizing drives without inviting IBEW representatives to be present.
In previous dealings with TXU, says Crawford, the company kept pushing for total discretion over many collective bargaining subjects. The new agreement requires good-faith bargaining over all mandatory subjects and creates joint committees on safety, staffing and benefits.
Dispatchers in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area voted IBEW after a campaign led by Region 4 Lead Organizer Larry Hayes and Regional Coordinator Tim Bowden. Other non-represented craft and technical workers at Oncor have contacted the IBEW asking for help in organizing
TXU was purchased by the private equity firm, KKR, in April 2007. With the support of the AFL-CIO, an agreement was reached whereby the IBEW supported TXU’s purchase before the state public utility commission. In return, KKR agreed to terminate the outsourcing venture that gave rise to the organizing campaign.
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