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January 3, 2008
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOURS!
588 AT&T
Customer Care Reps Vote CWA in New Hampshire
Concerned over the lack of job security, poor wages,
and exorbitant health care costs, a unit of 588 customer
care workers at an AT&T Government Solutions center in
Dover, New Hampshire, gained representation with CWA
Local 1298 through majority card check. According to
the state AFL-CIO it was the largest private sector
organizing win in New Hampshire since 1966. The workers
process passport applications under an AT&T contract
with the U.S. Department of State.
"The leaders of the employees' inside committee did a
tremendous job of educating the workforce, which is very
young, about the value of having a union and bargaining
rights in being able to address their concerns over the
affordability of health care and other issues," said
District One Vice President Chris Shelton. "We hope to
make the workers proud by securing a fair first contract
that raises wages, improves job security, and makes
their health care more affordable," he said. A full time
employee earns just under $22,000 a year, but the yearly
deductible for family health care is $5,000.
The card check was certified by the American
Arbitration Association on November 5, but CWA withheld
making an announcement about the victory until now
because of the onerous requirements that a Sept. 29 NLRB
decision has put on workers who gain a union through
card check.
The ruling by the Board's Republican majority gives
anti-union workers, or a competing union, a 45-day
period following a card check to petition the NLRB for a
decertification election. In effect, this ruling means
that just 30 percent of the workforce can force an NLRB
election, even if the majority of the workforce signed
up to join the union in a card check election.
NLRB
Slams Workers Again in Guild E-mail Ruling
The National Labor Relations Board has dealt yet
another blow to workers' rights, ruling in a case
involving CWA journalists that employers can ban
union-related messages from being sent through a
company's e-mail system.
The case has been pending since 2000 and stems from
three e-mails sent by the then-president of the Eugene
Newspaper Guild in Oregon. The e-mails discussed a union
rally and urged members of TNG-CWA Local 37194 to wear
union colors to support contract talks.
The 3-2 NLRB ruling was split along party lines, with
outgoing Chairman Robert Battista voting with fellow
Republicans to declare that e-mail is company "property"
and employers can restrict its use with virtually no
limitations.
Dissenting Democratic members Wilma Liebman and
Dennis Walsh said the anti-worker majority on the NLRB
has made the board "the Rip Van Winkle of administrative
agencies" by failing to recognize how e-mail has forever
changed communication at work and beyond.
"The majority erroneously treats the employer's
asserted 'property interest' in e-mail – a questionable
interest here, in any event – as paramount, and fails to
give due consideration to employee rights and the
appropriate balancing of the parties' legitimate
interests," they wrote in dissenting arguments.
TNG-CWA President Linda Foley called the decision "a
continuation of the Bush NLRB crusade to shut down the
rights of workers." Especially appalling, she said, is
that the case involves a newspaper that is otherwise a
champion of free speech.
The ruling has drawn fire from labor leaders around
the country. AFL-CIO General Counsel Jonathan Hiatt told
the New York Times that, "Anyone with e-mail knows that
this is how employees communicate with each other in
today's workplace. Outrageously, in allowing employers
to ban such communications for union purposes, the Bush
labor board has again struck at the heart of what the
nation's labor laws were intended to protect — the right
of employees to discuss working conditions and other
matters of mutual concern."
Guild leaders say the board's finding that the
newspaper's e-mail policy doesn't discriminate against
the union can be disproved by the words of the paper's
own lawyer.
"During bargaining on a communications policy it
proposed in August of
2001, the company's attorney, Michael Zinser, said that
under the company's proposal, the Guild could not use
e-mail to communicate with its members, but that it
could be used by employees who wanted to decertify the
union," said Eugene local co-president Randi Bjornstand.
"Six years later, I still think that smacks of illegal
discrimination."
CWA Calls for
Independent Telecom Spinoff for No. New England
As regulators in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine
express concern over Verizon's proposed sale of its
phone business to a small North Carolina company,
FairPoint Communications, CWA has proposed that
governors and lawmakers in the three states consider
forming an independent company to buy and operate the
telecommunications network.
CWA leaders applauded the Vermont Public Service
Board for its recent rejection of the deal in a ruling
that concluded the sale "has the potential to lead to a
reduction in service quality, in less investment in the
Vermont infrastructure and to slower deployment of
broadband services than is acceptable."
The Vermont regulators "got it exactly right," said
CWA President Larry Cohen. He noted that a proposal by
the two companies to restructure the deal to lesson
FairPoint's debt load, which is being considered by
regulators in Maine this week, is inadequate and would
still leave residents with a financially shaky company
and limited – if any – access to high speed Internet
services.
CWA, together with the AFL-CIO and IBEW, is urging
leaders in the three states to establish an independent
company to create a stronger, more viable network, which
would:
-- Be operated by local management dedicated to the
region.
-- Not be burdened with $2.3 billion in debt, as
FairPoint would be.
-- Improve on Verizon's record of investment in the
region, versus FairPoint's plan to cut that investment.
-- Continue shareholder dividends at current or
lower levels, unlike FairPoint, which plans to pay twice
as much in dividends as it earns in income.
-- Be committed to rolling out true high-speed
Internet service to every home and business.
IUE-CWA Blasts Delphi Executive Bonus Plan
IUE-CWA reacted angrily to the revelation in a Jan. 2
court filing of Delphi’s intention to reward Chairman
Robert S. Miller with an $8.3 million bonus – previously
undisclosed in the company's executive compensation plan
-- for leading the auto parts maker through bankruptcy.
“This is just another pathetic example of the U.S.
system feeding ever increasing corporate greed," said
IUE-CWA President Jim Clark. “Many working families have
been forced into personal bankruptcy while corporate
executives reap great personal windfalls on the backs of
their employees."
IUE-CWA Automotive Conference Board Chairman Willie
Thorpe said, “It’s totally ridiculous, anybody getting
that kind of money after what they did to our people.”
In addition, the company’s Chief Executive Officer
Rodney O’Neal stands to gain a $5.3 million cash bonus
and up to $10 million in stock options when the company
leaves bankruptcy, expected in the first quarter of this
year. He is also set to receive $1.5 million in salary
and will be eligible for bonuses of atleast 125 percent
of his salary, or $1.9 million annually. Long-term
incentives for O’Neal included up to $6.7 million in
restricted stock and stock options.
Miller came to Delphi in June 2005 for a salary of
$1.5 million and a $3 million bonus. In 2006, the
company’s first full year in Chapter 11, he gave up his
annual salary and said he would work for $1 per year
until the company leaves bankruptcy. He handed off the
CEO title to O’Neal in 2007 and plans to leave Delphi
when the reorganization is approved.
IUE-CWA agreed to hourly pay cuts from about $27 to
$16.50 an hour and to allow the company to hire new
workers for about $10 an hour. About 3,130
Delphi workers took retirement or buyout payments to
leave the company, and Delphi closed several plants.
The company has continued to lose money throughout
the bankruptcy -- $2.8 billion in 2007 alone.
The bonus was proposed by Delphi’s compensation
committee and approved by its board of directors as part
of the company’s reorganization plan. The company’s
creditors are scheduled to vote on the plan on Jan. 11.
Delphi is due in court Jan. 17 in New York to seek
approval of the plan.
IUE-CWA will join the Auto Workers, whose members
also suffered major wage, benefit and job cutbacks, in
formally objecting to the executive compensation portion
of the reorganization plan, Clark said.
2,700 Piedmont Agents Gear up for Union Election
Ramp and gate agents at Piedmont Airlines are gearing
up for a CWA representation election that begins on
January 22.
A majority of the 2,700 agents petitioned the
National Mediation Board for a union election in
November. They are the only major workgroup at Piedmont
and parent company US Airways without representation and
consequently they receive only a fraction of the pay of
mainline and mainline express agents doing the same
jobs. Piedmont operates as an express carrier for US
Airways.
CWA and AFA-CWA-represented agents and flight
attendants at Piedmont and US Airways are assisting in
the campaign. The election, to be conducted over the
telephone and on the Internet, runs until February 19
when the ballots are tallied.
TNG-CWA Local: Writers Guild Management Unfair to
Staff
The Newspaper Guild of New York, CWA Local 31003, has
filed several unfair labor practice charges with the
National Labor Relations Board over the anti-union
actions of Writers Guild of America East management.
President Bill O’Meara said the WGAE management
reneged on a ratified contract with 19 staff members
represented by the TNG-CWA local.
WGAE management now wants to change the terms of a
signed and ratified contract, terms that management
negotiators agreed to, said O’Meara. He made clear that
the Guild is fully supportive of striking Writers Guild
members, and the dispute is solely with a management
that contends it didn’t mean to propose the wage
increases that were included in the contract that was
ratified by union members.
O'Meara said the dispute arose after the Writers
Guild rewrote the previously ratified contract and
insisted that the TNG local sign the revised version.
“It’s like a car salesman demanding that you sign a
contract after he’s changed all the numbers that you had
agreed upon,” he said.
“It's unbelievable that that WGAE management doesn’t
seem to understand that it can’t pick and choose the
language it wants to live up to in a contract,” O'Meara
said. “The contract language clearly supports our
position regarding money owed our members that
management is now refusing to pay.”
The NLRB charges cite WGAE Executive Director Mona
Mangan for threatening to discipline the staff's union
representative for insubordination when she took issue
with Mangan over her handling of the dispute.
Another charge spotlights WGAE’s threat to withdraw
previously approved holiday bonuses unless the union
dropped its grievance over the wage increase owed and
signed the revised contract. WGAE eventually paid the
bonuses, but later than originally
scheduled.
TNG-CWA members continue to fully support the
striking writers in their dispute with television and
movie producers, the local said. “Out of respect for our
striking fellow union members we tried to work this out
quietly, and we even offered to submit the dispute to
arbitration,” O'Meara said. “But the anti-union stance
of WGAE leadership against its own workers, as well as
the filing of a baseless charge against the local two
weeks ago, forced us to reluctantly take this public
step to defend our members.”
IN BREIF:
- In a close race – one you'd hope no
company would want to win – Smithfield pork
slaughterhouse CEO Joseph Luter III beat out
American Airlines and Verizon Business to be named
"Grinch of the Year" in the annual Jobs with Justice
contest for the worst of the country's
union-busting, workers-rights-stomping employers.
Of nearly 10,000 votes cast on the JwJ website in
December, 28 percent went to Smithfield, which has
run a fear campaign for more than 10 years while its
Tar Heel, N.C., employees have fought relentlessly
for a voice at work.
American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey was an extremely
close second, getting 27 percent of the vote.
Airline managers are reaping millions in bonuses
while workers who gave concessions to keep the
company out of bankruptcy in 2003 are getting
nothing.
Coming in third was Verizon Business' Bob Toohey,
vice president for human resources. Despite
widespread community and political pressure, he and
the company have engaged in a full slate of
anti-union tactics while refusing to recognize the
majority of VZB technicians in New England who have
signed cards seeking representation through CWA and
the IBEW.
- Just in time for election jokes,
late-night TV is back – but only David Letterman has
made a deal with the otherwise-striking television
writers, allowing them to return to his and fellow
CBS host Craig Ferguson's shows.
Letterman invited 10 out-of-work writers
from daytime, prime-time and other late-night shows
to deliver his Top 10 list Wednesday night,
detailing their contract "demands."
No. 10: "Complimentary tote bag with next insulting
contract offer." No. 6: "No disciplinary action
taken against any writer caught having inappropriate
relationship with a copier." No. 2, delivered by a
writer for Conan O'Brien's show, "I don't have a
joke -- I just want to remind everyone that we're on
strike, so none of us are responsible for this lame
list."
The two-month old strike involves fair compensation
for writers whose material makes millions for media
companies that rebroadcast it on the internet and
other digital media.
Writers Guild of America members picketed outside
the NBC homes of hosts Jay Leno and O'Brien, who
returned to air without writers. Though strikers
said they are targeting the network and not the
hosts, who publicly support the writers, many
would-be celebrity guests are expected to refuse to
cross the picket lines. That wasn't an issue for
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who
flew in from campaigning in Iowa to appear with Leno
on Wednesday.
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