4/11/20

Tony Osborne

H.R. Director Tata Chemicals

Tony,

We asked for the opportunity to bargain over some benefits and pandemic related topics in good faith.  After one counter,we received a last, best and final offer from the company.   While we were able to meet with senior leadership at the plant to try to work things out after this, I believe this is indicative of the company’s attitude towards this entire process.  We have looked at the company’s proposal for the Covid-19 relief, and instead of getting closer to an agreement, we feel we are even further apart.  We do not feel the company’s offering of 40 hours of pay over a two-week span to a pandemic victim is anywhere near the value of our negotiated terms that the company is so determined to step on.  Furthermore, the fact that the company did not change the offering of pay already on the table, just spread it out differently.  Then the company came back and wants to suspend the layoff clauses already in the contract. This is further evidence that this leadership needs to realize that the company is not negotiating in good faith, merely trying to take advantage of the situation at hand.  The mere idea that in a financial crisis that the company would have the right to suspend the negotiated layoff language built into the twelve-hour letters of agreement is absurd. The only conceivable time the layoff clauses would be used would be in a time of financial distress. The very intent and spirit of the language is to make sure every other avenue available has been looked at and considered before a single member is laid off.  The union was, and still is willing to agree to temporary language changes if the language would revert back to existing contractual language if a lay-off where to take place.

Neither the local or the International feel the company has the right to unilaterally change aspects of the CBA.  Our legal team has looked and found no evidence of any case law that would give the company the right to unilaterally change the CBA.  If you choose to unilaterally implement these changes, as you have stated, we will use every legal avenue available to us to stop it.  That being said even the threat of unilateral implementation that you use just shows how little respect you have for the local and USW as a whole.

We are well aware of the current market situation the company is dealing with, and as such we are prepared to make allowances to try to keep members working as long as possible.  And god forbid a workforce reduction is inevitable, we will work with the company as much as possible to minimize the impact and get the effected members back to work as soon as possible.  We all want the company to be profitable, and we all want to make a fair living.  It seamed we were starting to mend a very broken relationship, and I am hopeful that this does notstop that momentum.  We were both aware that there would be some things that we would never agree on, and I think we have reached the first one. 

Sincerely,

Mike Hernandez

President USW Local 15320