On Jan. 4 and Jan. 5, IBEW Local 1245 met with PG&E to continue the negotiations process. The company and union benefits committees met first, and then the full committees met after. At these meetings, we were able to reach a tentative agreement on benefits issues for a new four-year contract. In response to Local 1245’s strong assertion in negotiations that an agreement with changes in sick leave or vacation would not be ratified, the new tentative agreement on benefits includes no changes in either sick leave or vacation. This tentative agreement is only one part of an entire package that needs to be negotiated before a new ratification vote, and so the details of the benefits tentative agreement will not be reported until an agreement is reached on a comprehensive package.
In the near future, PG&E will communicate whether it wants to address several contract language issues in general negotiations or ad hoc negotiations. Local 1245 prefers the ad hoc approach because the negotiations and voting involve only the employees who would be impacted by the changes. On the other hand, if the decision is made to proceed with full general negotiations, Local 1245 is prepared to submit a bargaining proposals based on the issues that our members identified in 2014 and 2015.