Business Manager's Report

Originally printed in NW Labor Press

By Garth Bachman, IBEW Local 48 Business Manager / Financial Secretary

Jordan Cove Project Update

I would like to thank all of the Local 48 members that attended the City Council meeting in Coos Bay on January 7th. The City Council approved the next phase of permitting for the Jordan Cove project and I believe this was in part due to the project's overwhelming show of support. This is a very large project for all of our Building Trades and for future employment in our state. Thank you again to all that attended.

Edison Pension Study

In December, I had a conversation with the investment consultant for our Edison Pension. The main concern that I brought up was the projection of the plan for the future. He recommended having a stochastic study done on our plan. I had never heard of that word, let alone knew what it meant so he went on to explain that it is a study done by the actuary that will illustrate the probability of outcomes of thousands of different investment return scenarios provided by the investment consultant. Both the investment consultant and the actuary agree that this type of modeling captures the impact of investment risk better than other modeling techniques. The Board of Trustees approved having this study done which will help us create a roadmap to achieve various goals that we need to set for our plan.

This study will hopefully be complete by the time you receive this article so I will have more information in the near future.

Benefits Update

The Harrison Trust now has a new benefit that I would like to tell you about.

We now have a pregnancy time loss and extended FMLA benefit available to Harrison participants. To give you a little bit of the background of the development of this benefit, Bridget Quinn, our Workforce Development Coordinator sent me an e-mail awhile back that had the story of how the Ironworkers accomplished getting a similar benefit on a national level. I told Bridget that I didn’t know that if I could do much on a national level but I would certainly give it everything I could on a local level. Fortunately, the Harrison Board of Trustees agreed!

We now have a benefit covering pregnancy:

• The time loss benefit is $800 dollars per week for 13 weeks prior to projected due date and another 13 weeks after the birth of the child. Disability is NOT a requirement for this benefit.
• For the same 26 weeks, the member’s health insurance will be covered by the Trust, meaning that their hours bank will remain the same.

Please read the article from Harrison included in the Feb. 7 edition of NW Labor Press for more details.

On a final note, this year should be good for work so please always work safe and enjoy your families.

-Garth