Conco pumpers ratify historic new contract! January 4, 2008

New deal restores one-contract-for-all principle

(January 4, 2008) -- Tonight, Local 302 members at Conco Concrete Pumping ratified an historic new contract, voting to approve a tentative agreement that the Union reached with the company earlier in the day. The new contract, covering about 30 Conco pumpers, restores the fundamental Union principle of "one contract for all," and establishes what the Union considers to be the industry's new master agreement. It ends the expired agreement's two-tiered system of one set of benefits for some employees and an inferior set for others, with employers pressuring members to choose what’s cheaper for the company.

The previous contract covering concrete pumpers expired on Dec. 31, 2008. Local 302 members at Ralph’s, Pacific and Brundage Bone rejected a last-minute contract proposal from the companies Dec. 30. That proposal retained the two-tiered system of benefits and took further steps backward in other language. Those companies are now without a contract and are considered non-union. Local 302 remains open to meeting with all concrete pumping firms about signing this new master agreement, which sets the bar where it should have been all along, with all members getting the same wages and benefits.