Mutual gains at Georgia Power - Georgia Power Co - Developments in Industrial Relations

Monthly Labor Review, April, 1994 by Michael H. Cimini, Susan L. Behrmann

Using mutual gains bargaining, negotiators for Georgia Power Co. and Local 84 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers signed a 3-year agreement covering some 5,500 utility workers statewide. During contract talks, joint committees reviewed areas, such as wages, benefits, and work rules, to negotiate changes that would be mutually beneficial to management and labor.

The contract calls for wage increases of 3.75 percent in the first year and 3 percent in the second and third years, and 2-cent increases over the term of the agreement in shift differentials, to 42 cents an hour for working the second shift and to 52 cents an hour for working the third shift. At the expiration of the prior agreement, top-rated lineworkers earned $17.70 an hour.

The parties made several changes in benefits and work rules. They changed accidental death and dismemberment benefits from $150,000 for both employees and spouses to $500,000 for employees and $300,000 for spouses, and increased long-term disability benefits coverage from 12 months to 18 months, with benefits equal to 65 percent of regular pay. Bargainers also modified contract language dealing with several work rules, including one that now requires employees to travel up to 35 miles from their regular job site to an alternative work site without compensation for the trip, another that governs how employees will be chosen for overtime during emergencies such as storms that down or damge power lines, and one that addresses training and safety arrangements for work on high-voltage lines.