Up to Speed with Sonny Shannon

Yesterdays meetings went great. All that attended were introduced to our Lead Negotiator, GCC/IBT International Representative, "Sonny" Shannon. His first name is John, but he says he uses Sonny because it takes too long to say his full name, I've heard him say it, it's true!

Sonny brings a strong presence to the table and is sincere in his service to our bargaining unit. The negotiation committee has put it's full confidence in both Sonny and Mike Huggins without reservation.
Both of these men have proven to be committed to our bargaining unit and have convinced the committee that we indeed have the best representatives in the business. I think those of you that met him yesterday would agree.

Topics discussed were related to current production raises. An information request pertaining to the raises was presented at negotiations on July 9th and the company was not prepared to respond to our information request when we met again on July 16th.
We expect to receive that response at our next meeting.

Sonny explained our decision to contact advertisers and to run radio ads as well as their effects.The company's bargaining style does, and will determine whether or not we continue these type of actions to increase our position at the table. We presented language to create an evironment of cooperation in bargaining which the company representative stated they could agree to in concept. We have agreed to bargain from a position of "Mutual Interest"
If we stay true to this concept we will reach agreements that will provide both sides what they each need, and not necessarily what they each want. We will attempt to reach agreements and create the language to reflect those agreements, hopefully resulting in a contract sooner than later.

Many complaints were heard about evaluations that were given in which great disparitys between these evaluations and past evaluations are evident. We have addressed this at the table and will continue to do so. We do not agree with this process because it continues to cater to favortism by those who evaluate.

We also delivered your complaints about supervision's inconsistant placement of presspersons added to a crew when the absence of a crew member occurs. In the event of a vacancy on a crew, regardless of the reason, additional personell has historically, according to their model, gone to the bottom of the crew and the members on the crew move up until the vacant crew spot is filled. Our SVP's response was that they have always had the right to put replacement crew members anywhere on the crew based on production needs and the individuals skills. I strongly disagreed and told him that the reasons explained to those who complained were told "thats the way it is, and that's the way it's going to stay. Nothing about production needs or skills.
I don't think this will be the end of this subject.

Our next negotiations are scheduled for July 30th and 31st.