• CWA Leads Safety Push in Wake of Electrical Deaths, Injuries
• New Yorkers on Month-Long Trek to Save Hospitals
• Verizon Shareholders Will Take Up CWA Proposal
• IN BRIEF:
  • "Labor" is No Longer a Dirty Word in the U.S. House of Representatives
  • CWA Stewards Army Training Undergoes Field-Test
  • New Governor Shoots for Internet Access for All in NY
  • Democrats Vote to Raise Minimum Wage; Other Side of Aisle Threatens Filibuster
  • U.S. Chamber of Commerce Bullies Lawmakers Over Workers' Rights

CWA Leads Safety Push in Wake of Electrocutions

CWA, along with the IBEW, met with Verizon last month to talk about changes in education, training, tools and equipment to try to ensure that no one else is killed or disabled by telecom workers' proximity to power lines.

"They seem receptive to our concerns," said Ron Collins, assistant to District 2 Vice President Pete Catucci. "But it's going to be up to the union leaders and union members at Verizon to hold management accountable, to follow through."

More injuries and near-misses also have been reported by CWA members at AT&T, particularly in California. Leaders there have met with the company and have seen some improvements in its published safety policies and practices. National and local leaders hope to hold future meetings with the company.

The most recent electrical injury among CWA technicians occurred in December in northern California. In that case, a member of Local 9431 suffered severe burns and nerve damage in his hands when he came in contact with a power line while working to install telephone wire for AT&T.

Dave LeGrande, CWA safety and health director, said CWA fears the risk is growing in part because employers are cutting costs by hiring fewer workers and pushing existing technicians to work faster. "We are concerned that management's productivity demands are causing some workers to cut corners and not adhere to safety procedures," he said.

Collins said he raised that issue with Verizon executives. "My question to them was, 'Do you tell your field managers to encourage your workers, our members, to perform all of their safety checks every day?' They said that they do. We said that's not happening, that there's a push to 'hurry hurry, hurry, let's get one more job done.'"

Collins said future meetings are expected between the unions and Verizon and that CWA wants to provide the company with concrete examples of supervisors failing to encourage safety checks and workers feeling forced to rush. He asked that members with such experiences tell their local leaders, and that those leaders contact CWA staff.

CWA's Safety and Health Department has listed various near-misses, injuries and fatalities in a new seven-page safety fact sheet that is posted online at www.cwa-union.org/issues/osh.

The paper discusses the need for various types of training, safety equipment and regular "tailgate" meetings as work is assigned to focus on health and safety issues specific to a job and worksite.

All locals whose members work near power lines are urged to post and distribute the fact sheet. LeGrande, who also attended the Verizon meeting, is continuing to ask locals to report all electrical accidents or near misses to him at legrande@cwa-union.org.

Near misses may cause injuries, or simply alert officials to potential dangers. In Redding, Calif., for instance, a Local 9419 member working on an aerial platform recently noticed an arcing bridle wire. He further inspected the area and discovered that one leg of the power line had broken away from its electrical insulator. He called the power company and notified AT&T.

Union leaders say the four Verizon deaths over the past eight months — two CWA members and two IBEW — are the most they've ever heard of in so short a time. LeGrande said four other members have died of electrocution over the past eight years.

The most recent death occurred last October when a Local 2100 technician installing fiber optic cable near Baltimore-Washington International Airport was electrocuted while working in an aerial bucket. Mark Balsamo, vice president of the local and its safety and health chair, also attended the Verizon meeting.

New Yorkers on Month-Long Trek to Save Hospitals

Two members of Local 1168, Nurses United, are walking the entire distance from Buffalo to the state capital, Albany, in a public awareness campaign to preserve quality patient care and thousands of health care jobs in western New York.

Dawn Mele and Pat Sullivan set out on their 320-mile journey on Jan. 2, accompanied by local President John Klein, local executive board members and members of Locals 1122 and 1133. They began with a prayer service at DeGraff Memorial Hospital and that first day marched to Millard Fillmore Gates Circle in Buffalo.

DeGraff and Millard Fillmore are two of nine hospitals slated to be closed or converted to a different use as recommended by a state commission to curb skyrocketing Medicaid costs. St. Joseph's Hospital, also in the Buffalo area, also has been targeted by the commission, putting a total of 4,000 CWA-represented jobs at risk.

"The commission's recommendation became law Jan. 1, but now there's talk of tweaking it legislatively," Klein said.  Klein and others have signed on for part of the walk, either starting at the beginning or joining up along the way. He and the two women hope to meet with Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders when they arrive in Albany around Jan. 26 to seek increased funding for hospitals instead of closings, privatization and Medicaid cuts.

"Rather than closing down excellent medical facilities, our leaders need to be focused on providing even better care and affordable access to health care for the people of New York," said District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton.

On Jan. 3 a state Supreme Court justice issued a temporary restraining order blocking the closings until a suit filed by public interest lawyers on behalf of a Bronx resident can be heard.

"Part of the reason for this walk is to listen to the community, which the commission did not do," Klein said. "If they're going to implement any part of this report, they need to listen to the people who know health care, not just the business people and insurance companies."

Mele, an anatomic pathology assistant at Millard Fillmore, on the eighth day of the walk said community support has been wonderful. "We've had people hanging out their windows and doors. They've been great to us. An older gentleman came down to the end of his driveway and gave us a pack of Cokes."

She said patients are concerned about how long it will take them to get to another hospital if the closings go forward.

"In our area, there are three major ERs being shut down. In October, when we had a storm, all three were at capacity. Who's going to take care of these people?" she asked.

Verizon Shareholders Will Take Up CWA Proposal

A CWA proposal submitted to the Verizon board of directors to provide information to shareholders on relationships between top company executives and the compensation experts advising them over the past five years will be voted on this year by shareholders.

CWA submitted the proposal to address concerns that compensation consultants may not be fully independent in making executive pay recommendations because they have or expect to get other work from the company.

The New York Times reported last year that Verizon's compensation consultant, Hewitt Associates Inc., also was assisting the company with other paid consulting and human resources work.

Without more information from the company, it's impossible for shareholders to determine "whether that particular consultant or any other compensation consultants are sufficiently independent to provide objective advice," CWA said.

Proposals also have been submitted by the IBEW and BellTel Retirees, a management retiree group, among others. The Verizon annual meeting will be held in May.

IN BRIEF:

• Twelve years after then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich removed "labor" from the title of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee — calling it the "workforce" committee instead — new chair George Miller (D-Calif.) has restored the name.
  
  Miller believes "the name change in 1994 was a deliberate swipe at the labor movement in this country. He wanted to reverse the insult," his spokesman, Tom Kiley, told reporters.
  
   
• Moving ahead to build the CWA Stewards Army, CWA field-tested training materials this week with 35 CWA and IBEW members at a pilot workshop in Philadelphia. Participants also reviewed materials for the joint "Tear Down the Wall" campaign for union jobs at Verizon.
  
  The Stewards Army training will be fine-tuned based on feedback from the pilot workshop and will be rolled out through each district and sector, linked wherever possible to actual strategic campaigns. A Stewards Army website is being developed and sign-up cards will be going out to locals shortly.
  
  The CWA Ready for the Future program, adopted at last year's convention, set an initial goal of recruiting 25,000 activists for the grassroots army by July 2007, and a total of 50,000 by 2009.
  
   
• Newly elected New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer pledged a bold initiative to make affordable, high-speed Internet access available to every citizen in his first state of the state address.
  
  For the full statement, go to www.speedmatters.org — CWA's site for the campaign to spur economic development and job growth through build-out of high-speed networks. At the site you can also test your true Internet access speed and send a letter to your members of Congress urging a national high-speed Internet policy.
  
   
• House Democrats kept their promise and voted Wednesday to raise the federal minimum wage, but Republicans in the Senate are threatening to filibuster the bill and kill it unless it also includes tax cuts for business owners.
  
  The bill would raise the $5.15 minimum wage for the first time in a decade, bringing it to $7.25 an hour in three steps between now and 2009.
  
  "For the past 10 years, Republican leaders have held the minimum wage hostage," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. "Corporations and wealthy Americans have gotten their rewards. Now it's time to do the right thing for low-wage workers, with no payoffs to business."
  
  Democrats have just a one-seat majority in the U.S. Senate. They would need 60 votes to cut off a Republican filibuster and hold a vote on the bill itself.
  
   
• With its best friends on Capitol Hill out of power, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is bullying Democrats who support the Employee Free Choice Act or bills that give shareholders more power in corporate decisions, including executive pay.
  
  Reuters reported this week that the Chamber "vowed to oppose Democrats who want to make it easier for workers to join unions," among other reforms. Chamber President Tom Donohue was quoted as saying, "We will go all out to oppose union efforts ... They will have a major fight on their hands."
  
  The article noted the irony of the Chamber's anti-worker tantrum during the same week that former Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli walked away with a $210 million severence package. As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert put it, "What would he have been worth if he'd done a good job?"