Employment Training Panel May 11, 2009 Page 2
This proposal is supported by Teamsters District Council No. 2, which is the
signatory to the Collective Bargaining Agreement for the represented workers to
be trained. The opposition has been from Teamsters District Council No. 7,
which represents workers employed by an affiliate of Tomatek, located in
Hollister. The proposal was also opposed by the Teamsters California State
Council of Cannery and Food Processing Unions. As we understand, the
cannery council is a labor association whose membership is comprised of
several Union Locals in the San Joaquin Valley. The Cannery Council is
promoting a model collective bargaining agreement for use by all members,
called the California Processors Incorporated, or CPI. Employer-paid health
benefits are a key term and condition of employment under the model CPI.
District No. 2 is not a member of the Council, and chose not to follow the CPI in
its recent labor negotiations with Tomatek. District No. 2 agreed to a different
health benefits structure. The Employment Training Panel is created by statute
and must operate within the scope and authority delegated by statute. Included
in your packets today, is a brief outline of the key statutory elements of the
program that has been prepared by Maureen Reilly, General Counsel, and is
relevant to the issues raised in this project.
The only statutory or regulatory mandate this Panel has in regard to union
activity, is to obtain the prior written approval of the signatory to the Collective
Bargaining Agreement at the facility where training is occurring. In the current
project for Tomatek, District No. 2 is the signatory; the statute does not require a
consensus by all union affiliates or rivals; however, we can hope that all parties
reach a resolution to this dispute in a venue more appropriate than the
Employment Training Panel program.
The Tomatek project before us today, also has two unique characteristics: 1) the
seasonal worker status of the majority of trainees; and 2) the location of the plant
in a locality recognized by the ETP program as a high-unemployment area. The
seasonal worker training program was created some two years ago, as part of
ETP’s Special Employment Training category (SET). Under this program, the
Panel is authorized to waive the entire post-retention wage requirement, so long
as wages increase by three percent, between the start of training and the end of
retention. By policy, the Panel has not chosen to entirely waive the wage
requirement, but rather to modify the post-retention wage for seasonal workers
by up to 25 percent below the ETP minimum retraining wage. This is also very
similar to the wage modification allowed under the High Unemployment Area
(HUA) category. ETP has funded four other seasonal worker projects since the
inception of the special program; three of the four seasonal worker projects had
deep wage modifications. Tomatek would qualify for both seasonal wage
modification, and the high-unemployment area wage modification. Either way,
this is a modification of up to 25 percent below the ETP minimum re-trainee
wage. This ETP minimum wage was based on data collected by the
Employment Development Department’s Labor Market Information Division to
establish the unemployment rate. In fact, specifically for Tomatek and Fresno
County, which now has an unemployment rate of 17 percent, this would be a
post-retention wage of $9.75. This is an eligible re-trainee wage with or without
the inclusion of health benefits to establish that wage.