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August
3, 2007
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
The
ACRE officers are pushing this contract EXTREMELY hard due
to the closeness of the ratification vote by the engineers.
It's a circus! A contract should stand on its own merit.
It's not the end of the world if this gets voted down. Bottalico
was asked at an informational meeting what would happen
if we voted this down and he said, “I'll just come back
with a worse offer and you'll choose between the two”. Does
that sound like a General Chairman or one of the company's
negotiators?
Information
was just provided to us from the Teamsters. The MTAs director
of Labor Relations Gary Dellaverson refers to the new pension
(retirement age 62 with the 20% overtime cap) as Tier
V Pension . There is no ten-year cap on the 3%
employee salary contribution. They'll pay the 3% for their
entire careers!
This
doesn't affect you? Bottalico was asked at another informational
meeting that if this Tier V were only for the new hires
then put it in writing. Have the contract state that everyone
that works here now is guaranteed to receive the Tier IV
benefit. Bottalicos response was “We can't do that. It's
a double edged sword”. The members at that meeting accepted
it as an answer.
Obviously,
we are all in danger of having this Tier V
imposed on us in the following contract. Will we have to
start paying 3% forever again if we have this imposed on
us? ACRE flat out lies in their Q&A for this contract.
ACRE states that your Tier IV pension can only be changed
through the State Legislature. IT”S NOT A STATE PENSION!
It's a MTA pension. ACRE proves that you don't need the
Legislature to change our Tier IV pension by adding Tier
V the very first chance they get through contract ratification!
The
UTU does not think the membership is stupid. The UTU thinks
the membership is under informed.
ACRE
thinks we're stupid.
ACRE
officers are securing a greatly enhanced pension for themselves;
combining their salary with their union pay with a cap of
$144,000.00 for 2007 in determining their own MTA pension,
while inflicting Tier V on the membership. The only adjective
that describes ACREs actions is GALL. ACRE has insulated
itself from the membership with a different pension. WATCHOUT!
VOTE
NO !
Talk
to any young engineer and ask him if he now expects to work
until he's 62.
VOTE
NO !
ACRE
has NEVER had an informational meeting explaining your Tier
IV benefit hoping you won't know what your missing when
it's gone.
VOTE
NO !
Why
don't we demand the Teamster deal where EVERYONE pays 2%
of their first 40 hrs weekly for medical and reject Tier
V? The company pays ACRE. We can't demand anything.
VOTE
NO !
Keep
Tier V away from our membership now, and from all of our
future contracts.
Respectfully
Yours,
Kevin
A. O'Shea
UTU
Interim General Chairman
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