Pay STIP On Time!

PG&E Management has told ESC members still in negotiations for final salary and job descriptions that they will not receive their 2008 STIP payments until negotiations are finished. Now they are trying to blame ESC for the delay. Your union is all in favor of immediate payment! If you support immediate payment of the STIP checks, sign the petition below and send the response to John Simon.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Pay STIP on time!

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

Dear Mr. Simon,

We are glad that you recognize the importance of STIP payments to employees. Hopefully then you will agree with ESC's request that management pay the 2008 STIP on time.

To be clear, ESC requests that management pay out the 2008 STIP awards as soon as possible. ESC Local 20 actually made this request a month ago, but PG&E Labor Relations staff rejected it. But your message to employees today gives us hope that you may have reconsidered. ESC's request is still on the table.

It is true that under Letter of Agreement 08-12, ESC and management agreed that the STIP would not be paid until bargaining over salary ranges, job descriptions, etc. is finished. But that was over a year ago, and circumstances have changed. ESC Local 20 is willing to waive the portion of the letter that applies to the timing of the STIP payment, so that employees can get the payment on time.

We don't want to hold up anyone's payments. Do you?

Please contact ESC Local 20 as soon as possible to arrange for details of immediate payout of the 2008 STIP to employees who earned it and deserve it. Thank you.

Signed by:

Campaign Launched:
March 09, 2009

Background Information

Management has told ESC members still in negotiations for final salary and job descriptions that they will not receive their 2008 STIP payments until negotiations are finished.

It is true that in a prior Letter of Agreement between ESC Local 20 and PG&E Management, it was agreed that STIP would not be paid until negotiations are finished. ESC never thought that negotiations would take over a year for these new members.

Given the long delay, ESC has proposed waiving the portion of the prior Letter Agreement so that employees can receive their STIP payments now. Management now claims that they want employees to receive their STIP payments, but that somehow ESC is to blame for the delay.

Here is PG&E Management's letter to employees:

March 9, 2009

Dear ESC Represented Employee:

I am writing this letter to inform you that you will not receive a 2008 Short Term Incentive Plan (STIP) payment this March. I also want to explain why this is so.

You are part of a group of employees newly organized by ESC Local 20 under a neutrality agreement between PG&E and ESC Local 20. As a result of an arbitration decision interpreting the neutrality agreement, you became covered by the ESC agreement immediately after the card count in which more than 50% of the employees in your group chose ESC representation. The ESC collective bargaining agreement does not provide for STIP payments. Nevertheless, PG&E and ESC entered into a letter agreement providing for continued STIP participation for newly organized groups.

In the letter agreement, PG&E and the ESC agreed that, even though newly organized employees would not have otherwise been eligible for STIP payments, the employees would still continue to be in the STIP until a final resolution was achieved in bargaining for each group. The parties also agreed that no STIP payments would be made to these employees until an agreement covering a newly organized group was ratified.

The current state of bargaining over newly organized groups makes it clear that no STIP payment will be made in March. We believed we were close to reaching the end of bargaining for some of the groups. However, we experienced delays as a result of ESC making several voluminous information requests. We communicated our view that the requests were not relevant and would delay negotiations. However, the Company was legally obligated to respond to relevant portions of these requests and we have worked quickly to resolve them.

We are committed to completing these negotiations as soon as possible and we want to see employees in the newly organized groups receive their STIP payments. However, our agreement with ESC provides that STIP payments will be made only after an agreement covering the newly organized group is ratified. If there is no successful ratification vote, no STIP payments will be made.

We recognize the importance of STIP payments. That is one of the reasons why we have consistently proposed that STIP be a part of our overall compensation package designed to incent high performance. We will continue our efforts to bring these negotiations to a close as quickly as possible.

Sincerely,

John Simon Senior Vice President - Human Resources