Gas Co. Employees Approve Contract

After a highly visible campaign, the unions representing most Southern California Gas Co. employees have voted to accept a new contract that includes the provision union leaders had most hotly contested: a company proposal that could lead to the use of outside contractors to replace some full-time employees, including meter readers.

Sixty percent of participating union members voted to accept the two-year contract. It includes an immediate 0.25% raise, a 2.5% raise effective April 1 and a 3% raise a year later.

Contract negotiations broke down in August, primarily over plans by the utility to increase efficiency in various departments. Union leaders said that could include replacing up to 1,100 current employees with contract personnel.

Union employees staged a one-day strike Oct. 1, but members voted in December and January against longer strikes.

“I think everyone is happy to get this behind us,” said Joyce Rowland, Gas Co. manager of labor relations.

Rowland said workers and union and company representatives have been meeting to find cost-saving improvements but that some goals may be difficult to reach. She estimated that the company wants to save 45% of the costs attributed to meter reading, a task that employs 450 people.

Union leaders say their members were afraid to vote against the contract.

“The company just killed us to death with threats to replace the workers,” said Janet Jones, secretary-treasurer of Local 132 of the Utility Workers Union of America, which led the negotiations for union locals representing 6,000 of the company’s 9,200 employees.