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ESC Remains Committed to Protection of Members’ Careers, Income, Location Security as Service Planning Talks Continue

At the Service Planning Ad-hoc Committee meeting on June 27, ESC’s team of member representatives reviewed management’s ideas for new work processes, the New Business Rep classification, and other changes. The committee remains unconvinced that consolidation of estimating resources would lead to the goals that management has articulated. However, the Union communicated that we are willing to discuss these changes and reach a compromise with management, as long as our main goals of protecting members’ careers, income, and location security can be met, and if the overall agreement is not negative for our interests.

It was agreed to establish three sub-committees:

  • Locations and Impacts: This sub-committee will review management’s proposed future work locations for Design and Customer Contact employees, and evaluate the impacts on employees. ESC’s goal is to ensure that no member is involuntarily relocated beyond a commutable distance. In addition, ESC asked for incentives for voluntary relocations, and management said that this might be possible.
  • New Business Rep: This sub-committee will work on the job description for this new classification, and how it would integrate with both Estimators/ADE’s and SNBR’s/IPE’s.
  • Tools and Procedures: This sub-committee will evaluate new tools and other changes to work methods. This will include Alternate Work Schedules for non-customer contact employees, preference for in-house work ahead of contractors, field checking of jobs, system-wide specialized teams, and other items.

The sub-committees will meet throughout July and into August to develop solutions for the various issues, and we will be sharing our progress. We are planning to set up a conference call for all members for which the date and time will be announced soon. Please contact your steward or Union Rep with any questions or for more information.