By Kari Lydersen
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Nine workers chose the separation package, and 73 were hired by SEI. The remaining 28 workers, including Thayer, wanted to stay with Com Ed, either because they hadn’t been hired by SEI or because they didn’t want to lose their pensions. According to Riley Vercher Jr.–president of the union at State Line, United Steelworkers of America Local 12502–these workers were willing to accept all the terms of the deal except the pay cut, and they asked Com Ed to negotiate on that issue. Vercher says Com Ed told them it was all or nothing.
Determined to fight for a better deal, Vercher asked the Illinois Commerce Commission to freeze the sale to SEI until the wage issues were worked out. Com Ed still refused to offer a better deal, and the union negotiating team turned the original one down. Then the sale went through, and the 28 workers–who’d put in 14 to 31 years with the company and were all at the top of the pay scale, making more than $24 an hour–wound up accepting entry-level maintenance and janitorial jobs for only $13.37 an hour, sometimes at plants hours away from their homes. (Heather Fabian, spokesperson for Com Ed, said that no one from Com Ed wanted to comment on personnel matters.)
The IBEW had nothing to do with the negotiations during the sale process, and William Starr, president of IBEW Local 15, admits that his union doesn’t feel particularly responsible for the 28 workers’ current welfare. Now the Steelworkers have also abandoned the 28 workers, who are no longer dues-paying members. “Once the transfer took place, [the Steelworkers] said, ‘You don’t pay union dues anymore–it’s the IBEW’s problem,’” says Jim Coogan, who was bumped down to an entry-level janitorial job after 17 years with Com Ed. “But the IBEW’s not going to bat for us either. They say, ‘You came from the Steelworkers–let them deal with it.’”
Vercher and Coogan talked to a lawyer about suing Com Ed, but the lawyer didn’t seem interested in pursuing the case. “How do you fight Edison?” says Coogan. “They get whatever they want. We’re the lightweights and they’re the heavyweights.”
