Gas Co., Unions Reach Tentative 2-Year Contract
After feuding bitterly for months, Southern California Gas Co. and its unions have tentatively agreed to an innovative pact that would provide workers with substantial job security for the next 3 1/2 years.
For the company, the far-reaching accord announced Tuesday would make it easier to reassign employees and in some cases to contract out work--and also provide relief from the union’s contentious publicity and legal campaigns.
The proposed contract, which requires approval by rank-and-file union members, is designed to defuse tensions that have intensified between management and the unions in recent years. As the company has been pushing to shift more work to nonunion contractors, the unions have struggled, sometimes unsuccessfully, to safeguard their members’ jobs.
Paul Worthman, a union negotiator, praised provisions in the agreement that would preserve the jobs of all of the 5,100 full-time and 600 part-time workers covered by the contract. He said that during the life of the contract, which extends until April 1998, none of these workers can be laid off for anything but disciplinary reasons.
In addition, Worthman said, 95% of the workers’ jobs would be protected for an additional two years under a side letter to the tentative agreement. “Members have told us over and over that their No. 1 priority is job security,” he said.
Also included in the two-year contract--the current contract has 1 1/2 years left--are two lump-sum bonuses totaling 3.6% of workers’ pay and a 3% wage increase next year. Under the tentative agreement, the ratification vote must take place before Sept. 9.
Talks began on the contract in February but were stalemated until two or three months ago. At that point, in an unusual move, the national president of the Utility Workers Union of America, Don Wightman, approached Gas Co. President Warren Mitchell in an effort to get negotiations moving. Also entering the discussions was Frank Martino, the national president of the other union involved in the contract, the International Chemical Workers Union.
In a joint letter, the three men called the contract agreement “a very promising beginning” and urged ratification by members “as a positive step forward in our partnership . . . to become a world-class energy services provider.”
As part of that partnership, the company and its unions would form teams to discuss training and other workplace issues. The unions also would drop their “corporate campaign” against Southern California Gas, which included everything from noisy protests and marches to attacks against the utility in the Legislature and before the state Public Utilities Commission.
