Buffalo News, May 1, 2011, Sunday
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Buffalo News (New York)
May 1, 2011, Sunday
Donna Bandich isn't a professional football player. But she knows what it's like to be one these days.
That's because Bandich works at BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, and like Ryan Fitzpatrick and his Buffalo Bills teammates, she's now locked out of her job.
Only this lockout stings a lot more for Bandich and her 390 co-workers at BlueCross BlueShield's downtown headquarters than it does for wealthy pro football players.
"I've got a child with a disability, and they're locking us out," said Bandich, a Lackawanna resident who has worked at BlueCross BlueShield since 1986. While the locked out workers soon will be able to start collecting unemployment benefits, that won't replace Bandich's weekly paycheck, or the health insurance benefits that have been cut off.
"We're very scared," Bandich said, as a longtime co-worker and fellow single mother standing next to her outside the health insurer's offices wiped a tear from her eye. "We've got families. We've got mortgages."
Bandich has reason to be scared. This labor fight isn't just about wages and benefits. It's about job security, and BlueCross BlueShield's desire for a free hand to outsource work now done by Bandich and her fellow members of Local 212 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union.
BlueCross BlueShield said all of its competitors have the freedom "to explore any and all options to outsource work," and that it's at a significant competitive disadvantage because it can't do the same.
That's precisely why lockouts, while rare, really put the squeeze on workers, who have become reluctant to strike because they often lack leverage.
"The lockout has become a little more common in recent years," said Lou Jean Fleron, an emeritus professor at Cornell University's Industrial Labor Relations School in Buffalo. "Companies have come to employ it in a strategic way."
BlueCross BlueShield claims the locked out workers earn base wages that are 40 percent higher than the going rate locally for similar jobs. But its "final" contract offer, which union members overwhelmingly rejected last week, still offered pay raises of 1 percent during the next two years and 1.5 percent in the third year of the deal.
The company offered to guarantee that no union workers will lose their jobs due to outsourcing for a year after a new deal takes effect, but would allow for job cuts for other reasons, said Deana Fox, the Local 212 business representative.
Bandich was hoping the lockout would be short, as it was in 1990, when BlueCross workers were let back in after less than an hour. No new talks have been held. The company has lined up other staffers to fill in, and said it also might bring in temporary workers.
Julie R. Snyder, a BlueCrossBlueShield spokeswoman, said the company in 1990 allowed unionized workers to stay on the job for eight months after their contract expired. The union launched a campaign to embarrass management in public, harass it in the office and threaten to reduce the company's profits though the cancellation of subscribers. The company didn't want a repeat this time around.
"There were a lot of negative things that went on. It was a no-win situation," Snyder said. "If employees are allowed to work while talks continue, there is little to no incentive for the union to reach agreement."
These are scary times for all.
"We don't know what our future holds now," said John Lineberger, who has worked at BlueCross BlueShield for 25 years. "We do not want to lose our jobs. We'd rather be in there working."
e-mail: drobinson@buffnews.com
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