Remote Work Meeting

Above left to right: Donna Raschke Randy Hannsen, Phil Calderon, Gladys Negron, Bridget Brennan, Kathy Flynn, Melissa Bacon, Terry Rosas, and Arturo Saldivar at the IBEW 15 office on November 4th.

Clerical Stewards discussed the pro’s and con’s of working remotely beyond the

pandemic period. Normally, a meeting like this would have involved bringing in all clerical Stewards, but current conditions and office space restrictions warranted the meeting be limited to the departments the company had expressed an interest in continuing to work remotely beyond the pandemic period. This meant reducing the list of attendees to Stewards from the Call Center and the New Business Department. The smaller group allowed for proper social distancing in order to try and keep everyone safe.

Ass’t Business Manager Michael Freeman and Business Representative Fabian Vela discussed examples of problems that have arisen during this unprecedented period that has seen a large percentage of clerical employees shift from working in an office with varying number of coworkers to working at home in a much less collaborative environment. Topics discussed included use of personal equipment for company business, the loss of use of space in employee’s homes (where company equipment is set up or stored), as well as management performing bargaining unit work. The move to get as many employee’s out of the office as quickly as possible this past spring was done to limit exposure to Covid-19 and was never meant to be a long-term move. As such, not every possible scenario was discussed prior to employee’s being sent home to work remotely. The message coming out of the meeting was clear, we need everyone to be especially vigilant during this period and keep an eye on bargaining unit work. Without work there are no jobs.

Terry McGoldrick and Bill Phillips discussed the challenges facing the nuclear side of the house as well as all the political legislative activity they have both been involved in.