January 17, 2008
CWAers Meet with Arkansas Senators to Build EFCA
Support
In Arkansas, CWAers and other union members have put
the Stewards Army to work on the union movement's
biggest priority: passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
CWA members and union activists met this week in Little
Rock with Arkansas Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark
Pryor to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act and its
importance to working people.
Lincoln and Pryor, both Democrats, are critical to
building enough support in the U.S. Senate for the
measure so that opponents can't filibuster the bill and
prevent an up or down vote despite its majority support.
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Regina
Cain, left, meets with Senator Lincoln |
Meeting with Lincoln, Regina Cain, a steward and
member of Local 6507, contrasted conditions at her
workplace today – the AT&T Mobility call center in
Little Rock – with those under previous management when
workers who wanted a union voice were harassed and
intimidated. When Cingular, now AT&T, bought the
company, workers were able to quickly organize under the
company's neutrality and majority card check organizing
agreement with CWA.
Cain told Lincoln about the real value a union
contract brings to the lives of the mainly women workers
at the call center and called on the senator to support
the Employee Free Choice Act so more workers could make
a fair choice about union representation. Alan Hughes,
president of the Arkansas AFL-CIO, also attended that
meeting, along with representatives of the USW.
Separately, Ricky Belk, president of CWA Local 6502
and secretary-treasurer of the Arkansas AFL-CIO, had a
similar meeting with Senator Pryor. Both senators have
agreed to future follow-up meetings with CWAers on the
Employee Free Choice Act.
CWA Battling Idearc over Unilateral Pension Freeze,
Health Cutbacks
Battling a unilateral pension freeze and benefit
cutbacks by Idearc Media, CWA is mounting a major
grassroots mobilization and corporate campaign against
the directory advertising firm, which was spun off from
Verizon in 2006 but remains the official publisher of
Verizon directories.
About 700 CWA and IBEW members in New England and
Upstate New York have been working without a contract
since June when the company declared a bargaining
impasse and imposed steep concessions in all benefit
programs as well as job security and sales commission
plans.
The unions have filed unfair labor practice charges,
currently being investigated by the National Labor
Relations Board, against the company for declaring an
illegal impasse, bad faith bargaining, refusing to
provide information and making unilateral contract
changes.
"We have fought hard over 45 years to gain the
contracts we currently enjoy, and the company wants to
take it all back in one round of bargaining," said
District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton. The CWA
workers are represented by Massachusetts Locals 1301 and
1302.
Other CWA contracts with Idearc expire this summer
and at various points throughout 2009. Altogether, CWA
represents 1,700 Idearc workers in 17 locals in
Districts 1, 2 and 13 in the Northeast and
Mid-Atlantic. Their jobs include sales, customer
service, graphic design and clerical support.
Representatives from the Idearc locals are meeting
with union officers and staff today in New Jersey to map
out a strategy that includes reaching out to
shareholders, the financial community and news media.
The unions' message: Idearc is compounding poor
management decisions that have tanked the company's
stock by 48 percent in the past year by creating labor
turmoil and poor employee morale. While Idearc's
revenues are dropping, those of its major competitor
AT&T Directories grew by 26 percent in the first three
quarters of 2007.
Vermont Regulators Refuse to Fast-Track New
FairPoint Deal
Despite intense lobbying from the companies for
fast-track regulatory approval in Vermont of Verizon's
proposed sale of phone lines to FairPoint
Communications, the state Public Service Board listened
instead to key lawmakers and ruled yesterday that it
would hold hearings to examine terms of a revised deal.
The companies had submitted a new sale plan in
Vermont similar to one approved earlier in Maine, which
reduced the debt load on FairPoint by $247 million.
Verizon's bid to sell its business in northern New
England requires approval of all three states, Maine,
Vermont and New Hampshire.
Four legislative leaders this week had urged the
board to call for hearings and give "careful scrutiny"
to the revised deal, citing CWA's and IBEW's contention
that the modified proposal falls far short of leaving
tiny FairPoint as a viable company capable of providing
quality telecom service, let alone bringing high-speed
Internet service to the region. FairPoint, currently
the 18th largest telecom company, would have to borrow
$2.7 billion in the transaction.
Even as modified, the deal "would allow FairPoint to
invest $40 to $50 million a year less in the northern
New England network than Verizon has in recent years,"
the lawmakers wrote to the regulatory board. Signing
the letter were Sen. Vincent Illuzi, chair of the
economic development committee; Senate Pres. Peter
Shumlin; Speaker of the House Gaye Symington; and Rep.
Warren Kitzmiller, chair of the commerce committee.
In opposing the sale, CWA has been running radio and
print ads in the region comparing the companies'
modification to "putting lipstick on a pig" (www.nofairpoint.org).
The ads note that FairPoint's top Internet speeds are 20
times slower than Verizon's, and the crushing debt
burden on FairPoint would leave it in a financially
shaky condition.
Union Flight Attendants, Agents Play Key Role in
Piedmont Election
CWA and AFA-CWA-represented workers at Piedmont, US
Airways and other airlines are playing an important role
in Piedmont agents' campaign to get a union.
Their union election begins next week when the agents
start receiving balloting information from the National
Mediation Board, and voting runs until Feb. 19, when the
ballots are counted. "At this stage in the campaign it
means a lot for agents to hear from their union
co-workers because management's anti-union campaign of
supervisor one-on-ones and mandatory meetings is in full
gear," said CWA Local 13000 organizer Harry Arnold.
"Given the problems we have with access to the workers,
support from union agents and flight attendants is
critical," he noted.
With the heightened security measures put into place
since the events of 9/11, only ticketed passengers and
other airline employees can get access to parts of the
airport where the Piedmont agents work.
The union message is personally being carried to
Piedmont agents by CWA-represented mainline (US Airways)
agents who are talking with the workers every chance
they get. "Hearing from a union agent goes a long way to
debunking the anti-union message that the agents are
getting from Piedmont," said CWA Local 13301 Secretary
Deborah Robinson.
"We were glad to help," said Betsy Tettelbach, a
flight attendant who heads the union's master executive
council at Piedmont Airlines. "It's important that union
airline workers -- flight attendants, pilots, or agents
– are always willing to support our co-workers, whether
they are trying to organize or need bargaining support.
Solidarity really matters in our industry," she said.
Union agents and flight attendants will be wearing
"We Support Piedmont Agents" bag tags and lapel
stickers, and flight attendants have enlisted the
support of pilots who have also agreed to wear pro-union
stickers.
NABET-CWA Members Ratify Contract with ABC
NABET-CWA members nationwide have ratified a new
four-year contract with Disney ABC after months of
tough, tense bargaining and an overwhelming vote to
authorize a strike if necessary. The pact covers 2,500
technicians, camera operators, news writers and other
employees.
"On behalf of our bargaining committee, I want to
thank our ABC members for their support and patience
during these difficult negotiations," NABET-CWA
President John Clark said. "Without their support, we
wouldn't have been able to win the numerous and
significant concessions we were able to wrest from the
company during the intense final week of bargaining."
Among the union's victories, negotiators got ABC to
drop its demand to eliminate its workers'
defined-benefit pension plan, one of the key issues that
led to the strike vote last spring.
Wage increases will be effective retroactively to
Dec. 15, 2007. Most members will see raises of 3.5
percent immediately, followed by 3 percent in April
2008, another 3 percent in April 2009 and 3.5 percent in
the contract's final year.
The contract also includes improvements for daily
hires, including making some frequent daily hires
eligible for health care coverage and other benefits
through Disney's Signature Benefit Plans.
CWA President Larry Cohen praised Clark and the rest
of the bargaining team, calling the contract, "an
enormous accomplishment given the management demands to
end seniority and the pension, and the intensity of this
fight for so many months. Your leadership and the
outstanding bargaining committee, working with great
local leaders and mobilizers, are a model for all of
us."
Stewards Army Beats Verizon Deregulation Drive in
Virginia
Action by the Stewards Army produced a big win in
Virginia for Verizon consumers. In response to CWA's
campaign to safeguard Verizon consumers and quality
service and keep oversight of a critical public utility,
Verizon has dropped its efforts in the state legislature
to end the regulation of the sale of a telephone
company.
District 2 staff, CWA locals throughout the state and
the Virginia AFL-CIO are continuing to fight Verizon's
attempt to end regulation of basic telephone service
rates across the board for residential and business
customers. Bills pending in both houses of the
legislature would permit the total price deregulation of
Verizon's operations; last year the State Corporation
Commission had established a competitive test to assess
whether prices could be deregulated.
In testimony to regulators and other public
officials, CWA members have cited numerous examples of
Verizon's failure to maintain basic telephone service
across the state; the company is focusing attention on
the build-out of FiOS – fiber optic Internet, television
and phone service – in select areas but isn't building
these next-generation networks in most communities in
the state.
IN BRIEF:
- The AFL-CIO has launched an expansive
online survey about America's broken health care
system that will be shared with all presidential
candidates, current senators and representatives and
everyone running for Congress, as well as candidates
for state and local offices nationwide.
The survey is available for the next month
at
www.healthcaresurvey.aflcio.org. Questions cover
such topics as whether Americans are going into debt
because of medial bills, whether they are skipping
follow-up visits, treatments and prescriptions
because they can't afford them, whether they are
locked into jobs for fear of losing health insurance
and what they pay out of pocket annually for health
care.
Participants are encouraged to tell their own health
care stories in as much detail as possible. They can
submit them anonymously or have them published using
their first names.
"No doubt, special interests like insurance and
pharmaceutical companies will try to scare Americans
into accepting the unacceptable system we have now,"
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. "The results
of this survey will keep America on track, reminding
everyone of how little there is to lose and how
deeply the problems run."
- When state governments shop for
companies to do business with, they have the
responsibility to choose those that respect workers'
rights and "treat their workers fairly and with
dignity" Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski told Verizon CEO
Ivan Seidenberg in a letter urging him to respect
his employees' right to organize.
"I am supportive of companies that adopt a
worker-friendly posture as they tend to enjoy a
relationship that benefits both management and
employees," Kulongoski wrote. "Employees, if they
choose should have a contract that includes greater
potential for job growth, a fair grievance
procedure, enhanced job security and scheduled wage
progression and annual increases."
The Jan. 4 letter didn't specifically cite the
Verizon Wireless or Verizon Business campaigns in
which the company has refused to recognize unions
despite having a majority of workers in many
locations sign cards seeking representation.
However, Kulongoski's message was clear.
"I have long believed that the right to form and
join a union is something that we must protect for
everyone," he wrote. "As your employees look to the
future, I encourage you to work with them and
respect your workers' right to organize. I believe
such a stance is in the best interest of all of
Oregon's working men and women."
- Chamber to 'Populist' Candidates: We'll
Bite You Until You Bleed The U.S. Chamber of
Commerce has issued a warning to those pesky
"populist" candidates for president: If you consider
workers' rights anywhere near as important as the
right of businesses to make money hand over fist,
we're going after you.
No, those weren't the exact words of Chamber
President Tom Donohue. These were: "We plan to build
a grass-roots business organization so strong that
when it bites you in the butt, you bleed," Donohue
told the Los Angeles Times last week in a story
about the Chamber's plans to spend more than $60
million to defeat any candidate it deems
"anti-business."
Donohue told the Times the Chamber plans to be
active in 140 congressional districts, nearly four
dozen state attorney general and supreme court
races, as well as the presidential race.
"I'm concerned about anti-corporate and populist
rhetoric from candidates for the presidency, members
of Congress and the media," Donohue said. "It
suggests to us that we have to demonstrate who it is
in this society that creates jobs, wealth and
benefits -- and who it is that eats them."
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