He sat down. “So nice to be appreciated. Have you had a chance to look those company memos over I brought the other day?”
Greene reached across the messy desk for a clutch of paper. “This is pretty confidential stuff, Hank. Where’d you get it?”
“Somebody with connections.”
On the flash drive Marlene had supplied him had been an array of sales and cost figures. Most of it useless. Some, though, quite informative. There were also emails and memos among various departments. Anything from the three owners themselves was considered the Holy Grail, and Marlene had managed to snag a few.
Especially one.
An email from Hamilton Lee to Southern Republic’s industrial relations manager.
On the collective bargaining session just around the corner, per our meeting of last week, I wanted to confirm our position about five-year contract deals. During the last negotiations an effort was made to secure a five-year duration on the labor contracts. But costs associated with that, particularly with reference to IBEW where a percentage increase in wages was conceded, were high. Such efforts are not necessary this time. Of course, request five years in our initial offer but bargain that away in return for concessions. Each union will surely not want to agree to any long-term deal. It should be easy to secure three years in duration without any major concessions on our part. I wanted you to know that you have the board’s authorization to negotiate in this manner. Please keep me informed.
Greene held up Lee’s email. “Seems the company isn’t interested in five years this time.”
“And that could be a problem. Those two years were my only bargaining chip. Without ’em, all I can hope is just to keep what I already have.”
“You think they’re going to want takebacks?” Greene asked.
That was a dreaded word, one that required him to return benefits he’d sweated to acquire in years past. Like a slap in the face, where the company reacquired what it had never wanted to give in the first place.
Talk about murdering his image.
“They sure look like a possibility,” he said. “What else do I have to offer them?”
“Not a whole lot. These negotiations might be a disaster.”
He didn’t want to hear that.
“On a brighter note,” Greene said, “I met Brent Walker this morning. In court.”
“You be good to him, Lou.”
“Is he going to help you with the negotiations?”
“Brent won’t let ’em blindside me.”
“He may not be involved in the negotiations. New kid on the block and all. He told me today he’s got three filing cabinets full of workers’ comp cases.”
“He’s still on the inside. So you never know what he might come across. What do you think about those health care costs mentioned in the stuff I left with you?”
“That’s the company’s number one expense, bar none, growing every year by the millions of dollars. They’re self-insured, which comes with good and bad. If I were you, Hank, I’d expect proposals upping the yearly deductibles, raising the employee premium contribution, cutting some benefits, that sort of thing.”
He shook his head. “That’ll go over real big with the membership.”
“And it won’t help your image as a hard-nosed negotiator.”
No, it would not. “I’ve got to at least hold on to what I have—and try to get a little more.”
“And what do you have to offer in return?”
He thought about the two extra years he once believed his ace in the hole.
“Looks like not a damn thing… right now.”
12:17P.M.
MOODY’SBARBECUE WASBRENT’S FAVORITE PLACE TO EAT.IT WASlocated east of town on Old Post Road, right outside Concord’s city limits, a wooden farmhouse hauled across the county years ago just before Eagle Lake was flooded. For the past fifteen years it hadhoused a restaurant, owned and operated by a retired paperworker, its rustic feel and down-home quality intentional. The menu varied, a choice among beef, pork, or chicken, all served on paper plates wrapped in tinfoil, with two slices of fresh white bread. The sauce, a mustard-based spicy mixture, was what made the place extra special. Just the right blend of sweet and sour. People traveled all the way from Savannah sometimes just for lunch, the mouthwatering aromas strong from the instant customers parked outside.
