Collective Bargaining Update #2

 

Brothers and Sisters:

 

We want to provide you with an important update concerning an issue that will invariably shape both the future of this Company, and more importantly, the livelihoods of the hardworking men and women who have and continue to dedicate their careers to keeping the homes in this State warm and the lights on uninterrupted, particularly as we approach the holiday season.

 

Among the issues raised at the recent bargaining session is the growing introduction of new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, and sophisticated employee monitoring systems, and the impact of and effect on our members, job security, and their working terms and conditions of employment. The Company acknowledged three technologies currently available: (i) drone technology; (ii) smart meters; and (iii) vehicle cameras and telematics. Though these technologies and others, when responsibly implemented, may improve efficiency, enhance public safety, and provide our members with better tools to perform their jobs, advancements should never come at the expense of the very workers whose skill, sacrifice, and dedication made that progress possible.  The Coalition is fervently seeking to ensure that any technological change does not become an opportunity to eliminate good-paying union jobs, diminish hard-earned contractual protections, compromise employee privacy, or replace the experience and judgment of trained professionals with the unaccountable recommendations of a computer algorithm.

 

Along this vein, the Coalition presented the Company with an extensive series of questions intended to better understand these technologies, their capabilities, their intended uses, and their potential consequences for our members, including the attempted collection of  members' personal, medical, biometric, neural, and other confidential information. We also need and are asking every member to remain vigilant and to please bring to your respective Union's attention any additional technology that you know, believe, observed, or have heard the Company may be experimenting with, testing, piloting, deploying, or implementing. Without knowing this firsthand from our members, the Coalition may be disadvantaged from protecting our collective interests at the bargaining table. 

 

Finally, as Thanksgiving approaches, we want to extend our warmest wishes to each of you and your families for a wonderful, safe, and joyous holiday.  Let us be thankful for the good-paying, secure union jobs we have today, that allow us to put food on our tables, provide a roof over our families' heads, give our children opportunities we may never have had, while remembering that our responsibility is to ensure those same opportunities remain available tomorrow by standing together for something greater than ourselves. That is what we are fighting for. 

 

On behalf of the entire Union Coalition, we wish you and your loved ones a happy, healthy, and blessed Thanksgiving.

 

Fraternally, 

 

The Presidents of UA Local 855, IBEW Local 94, UWUA Local 601, OPEIU Local 153, and NPPSOA Local 1