February 8, 2012
Dear Fellow Calpine Employees,
What a tumultuous ride it has been in the last six months. We may not have won our unionizing effort but we effectively raised serious issues that many of us care about and won the attention of management. Let's hope they have awoken to the growing discord not just of the Geysers employees, but all Calpine hourly O&M employees. The ball is back in Calpine corporate management's hands for at least one year.
With growing momentum between August and October, we had a majority of signed IBEW 1245 union authorization cards to file with the NLRB for an election petition on December 1st, 2011. But with the appearance of the anti-union consultants from The Alignment Group as early as October and sustained opposition by our management from the outset, our task became more difficult. Because of their misinformation, scare tactics, mandatory and one on one meetings on company time and property, a divide grew among the employees of the Geysers. The second blow to our effort was the refusal of Calpine management to agree to a non-adversarial campaign and the adoption of ground rules for a free and fair election process. The third blow was when Calpine successfully delayed the election from the first week in January to January 25th and 26th, 2012. An observation by the IBEW 1245 outside lawyer, Phil Thomas summed up the cause of the election results. "The same results would happen if Barack Obama would be allowed to campaign in the United States with unlimited funds and Mitt Romney could only campaign from Singapore with limited funds."
There were plenty of positive experiences. The sense of being part of a bigger cause and what it means to be a union.
The absolute high point of what it was like to be a union came the evening of January 24th, 2012 after the election observer training. The employer observers had left except for one field operator. The majority of IBEW 1245 observers remained when the lead Calpine lawyer asked for a stipulated agreement. He argued that Calpine should be allowed to pay certain employees one half hour pay if they could not vote on company time due to the inability to be relieved from their duties or due to high priority break-in work per the discretion of the employee's supervisor. The first thought among the majority of union supporters and IBEW 1245 lawyers was to decline the stipulated agreement due to the high likelihood of favoritism by paying only "No" voters. Mark Knaup was the only person to argue in favor of the stipulation. "It's a political move. They want us to turn it down," Mark said. That’s when Lisa Jones offered a brilliant idea: propose that the company pay all employees the extra half hour of time. It was agreed that the IBEW 1245 lawyers should argue for all employees or no employees to get the one half hour pay. IBEW 1245's lawyers, Jenny Martson and Phil Thomas, expertly advanced our counter proposal and Calpine agreed to pay every employee on the Eligibility List of voters one half hour of straight time.
So when you look at your pay stubs dated February 3rd, 2012 and wonder why there are two checks, think of the IBEW 1245. Think of what the possibilities could be if we had collective bargaining.
Just because we are not part of the IBEW 1245 does not mean we cannot act like a union. Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
The Calpine Organizing Committee
