BGE workers overwhelmingly reject unionizing

BGE workers overwhelmingly reject unionizing
Workers vote 1,135 to 304 against IBEW
December 17, 2010|By Hanah Cho, The Baltimore SunWorkers at Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. rejected a unionization drive by a nearly 4-1 margin, defeating efforts by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for the fourth time in 14 years.

After two days of balloting run by the National Labor Relations Board that ended Friday, the final tally was 1,135-304 votes, rejecting the union. The lopsided outcome keeps the Baltimore utility as one of the few utilities in the country that is nonunion.

"We are extremely pleased that once again BGE employees have chosen overwhelmingly to remain union-free," BGE spokesman Rob Gould said. "To have become handcuffed by the constraints typically imposed by a union contract could have changed our business forever and negatively impacted our customers."

If BGE chooses to be non-union, that is their choice. Apperently BGE must treat their people ok and give them pretty good benifiets. What gets my ass is their spokesman saying that a union contract would handcuff them-and have negative impact on their customers- how would this happen? I have been on both sides of the fence. My union requires a lot out of me, but in return I get good pay and benifiets. When i think of these spokespersons for all these companies that do not like unions- the handcuffs are on the employees, not the company. Most trade unions in the private sector have given up some pay and benifiets in the economy so that their employers can stay in business, the trade unions are joined at the hip with the employers. The govt emplyee unions are the ones giving trade unions on whole a bad image in not sharing the pain of a bad economy. We are all doing with less, the govt employees want more. People see this and they think all unions are the same.

Kinda like the guy I knew once. Not in linework, but I asked him if they were Union. He replied. No, but we make Union scale. At least he was honest.

Thats fine! If thats what they want, I've got no problem with it.

Keeping in mind that I'm pro union. If they were offered the chance to unionise and rejected it then that maybe says something about the current state of the IBEW.

It's like AMICUS in the UK. It doesn't really represent the workforce any more.

Time for a new one with actual journeymen at the helm.

I was always suprised at the number of non union utilites there are back east... after all... the East is supposed to be the hot bed of liberalism in the USA:)

Philly (PECO) never organised... neither did that bunch in Washington DC.

There are some good NON union companies... that stay that way because they cut a good deal with the help. OGE in Oklahoma runs good equipement and they seem to follow good rules and enforce good practices. They can be a little stingy and hard assed about transfers- no seniorty per se'.
I dont mind paying dues... it keeps the other side honest (sometimes)

PECO accepted the IBEW 6 or 7 years ago. It took awhile for them to get a first contract, but they got it and most are very happy with the union

When com ed/exelon and peco merged local 15 out of Chicago organized peco. Com ed has been walking all over local 15 since it's inception. It was created when the system council u-25 amalgamated all the Edison locals into one, and stole all the individual locals money. Something the previous presidents always feared! From their it's been all down hill. In '94', they froze are total earnings instead of your pension based on what you earned for the year, it was now figured on your base pay. But everyone on the pension board got their pension sweetened when they left. They took a step forward, anybody that had less than 20 years at the time took a step or 2-3-4 backwards. But they got theirs! Next thing you know instead of hiring they just work you double the hours, that way their pension costs are based on a 2080 hour year even thought the troops were working over 4000 hours a year. To say nothing about he other fringes Of not hiring like medical costs and so on. It went all down hill from there. Next thing you know they started being their own lawyers on arbitration hearings verse the companys hired guns. That hasn't worked out to well either. The company got smart and decided to take the union back to arbitrations the company had lost in the previous decades and easily had them reversed. The assistant B/A's were no match for the company lawyers. For Peco to be happy with local 15 doesn't say much for the environment they were in before.