{"id":360882,"date":"2018-05-12T14:17:52","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T13:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/plymouth-new-hampshire-electrical-workers-strike-to-defend-pensions\/"},"modified":"2018-05-12T14:17:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T13:17:52","slug":"plymouth-new-hampshire-electrical-workers-strike-to-defend-pensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/plymouth-new-hampshire-electrical-workers-strike-to-defend-pensions\/","title":{"rendered":"Plymouth, New Hampshire electrical workers strike to defend pensions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Plymouth, New Hampshire electrical workers strike to defend pensions<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    John Marion<br \/>\n    <br \/>12 May 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p><span>On Monday 80 linemen and five warehouse workers went on strike at the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC) in Plymouth. The workers\u2019 contract expired on April 30 and they are refusing to give in to management\u2019s attack on their pension plan. According to the web site of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1837, all five of the warehouse workers and 79 of the linemen voted in favor of strike action. However, by Tuesday NHEC had already brought in scabs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In a statement Monday NEHC declared it \u201chas activated a contingency plan that will provide for adequate coverage of power outages and protect public safety. Certified line crews have been engaged and will be accompanied on any outage calls by non-union NHEC employees who are familiar with the service territory.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Despite this threat, the IBEW has done nothing to mobilize telecom and power workers behind the strikers. Instead it has worked to isolate the workers, making sure they battle alone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Workers at NHEC are eligible for both a defined benefit pension plan and a small amount of matching if they contribute to a separate 401(K). According to the Cooperative\u2019s 2017 audited financial statements its contribution of $2.4 million to the defined benefit plan for 2017 was only 5 percent of total employer funding for the year. Because the plan is multi-employer, pooled contributions cover all eligible employees no matter where they work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The NHEC limit on matching 401(K) contributions for IBEW members is only 2.5 percent, while non-union staff\u2014whose jobs are not as dangerous as those of linemen\u2014receive matching of up to 4.5 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The workers have gone out because management is demanding&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/05\/12\/hamp-m12.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Plymouth, New Hampshire electrical workers strike to defend pensions By John Marion 12 May 2018 On Monday 80 linemen and five warehouse workers went on strike at the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC) in Plymouth. The workers\u2019 contract expired on April 30 and they are refusing to give in to management\u2019s attack on their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-360882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}