Atlantic Broadband Bargaining Update #3

The Union and the Company met on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 in Blairsville, PA to continue further discussion regarding proposed changes to the contract. Most of the discussions centered on the creation of a Bilingual CCR classification and DM Technicians doing on-call work.

The Company and Union discussed the need to create a Bilingual CCR classification to allow the Bilingual CCRs to be put on their own shifts, vacation schedule, and overtime schedule based on the needs of the bilingual customers. The goal is to have the Bilingual CCR classification, once properly staffed, handle all Bilingual customers and eventually eliminate the need for the language line. The English speaking CCRs will continue to be scheduled according to the needs of the English speaking customers. This change will result in the English CCRs being allowed to keep their current vacation allotment, which is currently shared with the Bilingual CCRs. This change will have no negative impact on the overtime scheduling for the English CCR because at this time the Bilinguals are not factored into the English CCR overtime requirements.

In previous negotiation sessions, the Company proposed to "discuss the creation of a second tier of oncall employees—DM's. On-call DM's would receive the same on-call rate but will be paid the hourly rate based upon the work they are performing. The Company may exercise discretion by assigning calls to the employee it deems most appropriate." The Company stated that they need this because they frequently can't get DM's to come out by calling through the list. The Company stated that they need a minimum of six DM's. Under this proposal, they would force DM Technicians, if they can't get six DM Technicians to volunteers. During our session yesterday, we informed the Company that the DM's and PM's were contacted about this proposal. The DM Technicians told us that years ago there was not a PM Technician wage scale and certain DM Technicians were on call. We fought to create the PM Technician wage scale to justify their extra responsibility and this proposal would reverse what we fought for in the past. The DM Technicians were clear that majority of they didn't not want to be on-call; however, the Company seems to believe that the Union did not communicate this proposal clearly. The Company threatened that if they didn't get this proposal or some other means of getting the DM Technicians to cover call outs, at they would look at scheduling 2 PM Technicians on-call and give the DM Technicians less of a raise then the other classifications because they didn't want to be oncall. DM Technicians and PM Technicians it is important that you communicate to the Union your views on this proposal on or before Monday, September 13, 2010.

The Union bargaining team will be talking again prior to our next negotiating session to prepare a proper response to the Company's proposal. Our next scheduled bargaining sessions are tentatively scheduled for September 14th, 15th and 23rd, 2010. It is important that the Company understands that Your Bargaining Team speaks for you.

Submitted by:
Unit 31 Bargaining Committee