Initial discussions have started between IBEW 1245 and PG&E regarding the 2014 FR Clothing allowance.
The discussions are starting early in an effort to address a couple of issues. One is our intent to try to get the allowances back on the early timeframe that it was on when the program first was introduced. The last couple of years the allowances were delayed due to a change in vendor and working through some issues associated with that change. Things seem to be on track with the new vendor and we don’t anticipate any hang ups this year.
The second issue is the workflow for the vendor. The vendor has indicated that the two busiest times are when the employees’ previous year allowances are set to expire due to the rush of employees trying to spend the remainder before it is lost, and then when the employees all receive their new allowances. One possible solution is to divide the times employees receive the new allowances into two groups, separated two months. An example of this would be all electric receives their new allotments in a given month and the rest of the company two months later.
This would help alleviate some of the delays some employees encounter as the company tries to fill all the orders at once.
With the current letter agreement there are provisions that allow an employee to go through their supervisor for relief if they run out of money. To this date we have had very few issues with employees getting this relief and of the issues we did encounter we were able to get the issues resolved in a timely manner to everyone’s satisfaction. We will be looking at how to possible make those issues better as well. Again this is just early discussions and there will be more to come over the next couple of months.