IAM Members at Bechtel Bettis Vote to Accept First Contract
(The negotiating committee, left to right,
Tim Anderson, Steve Dance, GLR Mike Wardle and Linda Brown)
Workers at Bechtel Bettis, assigned to the Idaho National Laboratories, located inside the Naval Reactor Facility just east of Idaho Falls, voted on December 7th and 8th to accept their first contract. The workers joined the IAM last year and have been working on the contract ever since. There are 220 people in the unit, and they overwhelmingly ratified the contract, which brought huge gains to them in several areas.
One of the major issues that the workers were concerned about was mandatory overtime and out of control shift schedules. This new contract addressed both of those issues and now gives the workers more control over their home lives. The workers process spent nuclear fuel for the United States Navy and the Department of Energy.
GLR Mike Wardle, who was assigned to organize the unit and then lead the negotiations for this contract, said "Overall, this is a very good first contract with gains in several areas. I was blessed with a fantastic committee to work with; Steve Dance, Linda Brown, and Tim Anderson helped lead this process from the beginnings of the organizing drive through the successful conclusion of the negotiations. They did a great job and represented this membership very well."
Other gains made by the negotiating committee, include improvements in:
- shift pay rules, shifts, shift bids, and annual bids; much of these options did not exist for the workers prior to accepting this contract.
- overtime to be paid daily (after each shift) this will also help get a grip on the mandatory OT.
- maintenance of their benefits with no changes in the design of H/Welfare, Dental, Vision, or Pension plans, with no additional cost to the bargaining unit members for any benefits.
- wage progression in their pay scale reduced from ten to six years, and established a firm timeline for reaching the maximum rate of pay in the workers' classification. Previously the workers only reached the top of their pay rate through a merit system, now the maximum is reached without any favoritism issues.
Western Territory GVP Lee Pearson said, "these workers have fought hard to gain some control over their lives. They had spent years under the thumb of mandatory overtime and rotating shifts. many of these workers would be getting ready to leave the job and go home to their families and get a tap on the shoulder and have to stay, without any opportunity to object that they hadn't seen their children in days or were already tired from working so many hours. I'm proud of GLR Wardle and the job he did here, he stayed with them all the way through the process and they got a great contract together."
