November 15, 2007
CWA Releases Locals and State Councils to Make
Presidential Endorsements
The results are in from CWA's e-poll -- the first
on-line presidential candidate preference poll ever
conducted by a major labor union. CWA members expressed
a preference against an early endorsement and
demonstrated close margins among the top vote-getters.
After reviewing the results, the CWA Executive Board
voted to release locals and CWA councils to make their
own endorsements.
The Executive Board urged locals to convene state
council meetings to discuss endorsement. In the absence
of a council endorsement, locals are free to endorse.
Local also are encouraged to meet with other CWA
locals in their geographic area and consider making
joint endorsements to increase influence for a
particular candidate, the board said.
Over the six-week on-line voting period -- from Oct.
1 through Nov. 9 – more than 30,000 votes for
presidential choice were cast. On the question of
whether to make an early endorsement, a slight majority
of voters indicated that no endorsement was their
choice.
On the choice of candidates, the three top
vote-getters received close margins of support from CWA
members. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama
were the top choices. Votes were split primarily among
three top Democratic candidates. About 20 percent of
votes were cast for a Republican contender.
"CWA is a member driven union and we will be guided
by our members' decision on this issue and all others,"
said CWA President Larry Cohen.
"In communities across the country, CWA members will be
raising our critical issues – jobs, health care reform
and bargaining and organizing rights -- for working
families over the coming months, with the goal of
electing a president and other leaders who will put in
place the policies our nation needs to restore the
middle class," he said.
At
www.cwavotes.org, members can continue to get
information about all the candidates.
House Adopts CWA-Backed Broadband
Mapping Bill
CWA commended the House of Representatives this week
on passage of the Broadband Census of America Act of
2007, calling for the mapping of broadband speeds and
access throughout the country. The action moves the
nation another step closer to bringing high speed
Internet access to every American, said CWA President
Larry Cohen.
"In order for our country to move forward to ensure
that a 21st century Internet is available for all, we
need better data to help us get there. This measure will
greatly improve the quality of that information," he
said.
The bill was passed by a voice vote in the House and
the Senate is on track to take up similar legislation
shortly. It incorporates key provisions supported by
CWA as part of the union's "Speed Matters" campaign,
which calls on Congress to establish a national Internet
policy to improve the quality, availability and
affordability of high speed broadband service to every
community. More information is available at
www.speedmatters.org.
Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on
Telecommunications and the Internet, cited CWA's support
for the measure in a statement on the House floor.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the build-out of high
speed Internet communications will fuel the development
of millions of new jobs in the United States. "We must
ensure that the United States has the telecommunications
infrastructure to bridge the digital divide so that
every American will have access to affordable and robust
broadband Internet service. This bill puts us on that
path," she added.
The bill requires the Federal Communications
Commission to report the actual number of residential
and business broadband subscribers per postal zip code,
which would bring about a significant increase in needed
data.
It also directs the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA) to produce a
consumer-friendly online map, showing the types of
broadband access available by company and area.
Thousands Demonstrate Across the Country at NLRB
Offices
Angered by a slew of recent NLRB decisions that are
stripping workers of their rights, CWA members and staff
joined other union activists — 1,000 altogether — at a
noontime rally Thursday in front of National Labor
Relation Board headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.
"I'm here today because new rules from the Labor
Board undo everything we worked to achieve," said CWA
member Jonathan Upright, an AT&T retail sales consultant
in Winston-Salem, N.C, speaking at a warmup rally before
the march to the NLRB. "Why would the federal agency
that's supposed to protect workers' rights actually make
it harder for workers to exercise their rights and make
their lives better? It's not right."
Upright and his coworkers formed their union at an
AT&T mobility center early this year after management
announced pay and benefit cuts. That led workers to
CWA, which has a national neutrality and card check
agreement with AT&T, he told the rally participants.
They formed their union without a struggle. But now the
NLRB is forcing AT&T's hand.
"Now there are notices from the Labor Board posted
around our worksite instructing us how to get rid of our
union," Upright said. "Our retail centers are the first
in the nation to have to post these new legal notices. I
just want to remind you that the Labor Board never
posted a sign telling us we had the right to form a
union."
Upright said he's confident his bargaining unit is
strong and can withstand the assault, but he's worried
about other workers. As union leaders speaking with
Upright said, the assaults will end with a revolution at
the ballot box next November -- which in turn will move
the Employee Free Choice Act from legislation to law.
The crowd of about 1,000 members of unions ranging
from the Teachers to the Steelworkers to the Seafarers
marched several blocks to the NLRB building. They
carried signs demanding passage of the Employee Free
Choice Act to make it easier for workers to organize and
bargain contracts. Workers in at least 20 cities across
the country held similar rallies Thursday at local NLRB
offices.
The Republican-controlled NLRB issued 61 decisions in
September that stack the deck against workers.
Collectively, the decisions:
- Make it harder for workers to form a union
through majority sign-up, often called card check,
and make it easier for employers to reverse a
workers' victory. The NLRB ruled that the employer
must instruct its workforce that 30 percent of them
can petition for an election to get rid of the
union.
- Make it harder for workers who are illegally
fired to receive back pay.
- Make it easier for employers to discriminate
against union organizers.
- Make it easier for employers to escape
bargaining obligations.
Workers also suffer because of long delays in their
attempt to get justice from the NLRB: The AFL-CIO said
more than half the decisions handed down in September
were on cases that had been pending for more than four
years and one case that had begun as far back as 1989.
"The Bush Board has steamrolled the rights of
American workers again and again," United Mine Workers
President Cecil Roberts said in a fiery speech. "This
agency is supposed to protect workers' rights and
enforce their freedom to improve their lives through
unions. Instead, we have a board that has blatantly
promoted a corporate agenda at every turn. I don't know
how they can sleep at night. It's time for this attack
on America's workers to end."
Lawmakers Join in Questioning Verizon-FairPoint Deal
Growing numbers of lawmakers in New Hampshire and
Vermont are standing with CWA and IBEW members in
voicing concern over the pending sale of Verizon's
access lines in Northern New England to tiny FairPoint
Communications.
In Vermont, one of the more powerful state senators,
Republican Vince Illuzzi, chair of the Senate Economic
Development Committee, joined with a delegation of union
and community leaders Wednesday in delivering 2,600
postcards to the governor from citizens who oppose to
the sale.
Illuzzi told reporters, "Vermont is in dire need of
broadband access for every business and household – not
someday, not maybe, and not when Verizon or FairPoint
gets around to it." He and others at the press event in
Montpelier noted that FairPoint, which is assuming $1.7
billion of additional debt in the deal, won't have the
ability to maintain let alone upgrade services.
In New Hampshire, more than 50 state legislators have
now written to the public service commission urging that
the sale be blocked or else conditions be imposed to
restructure the deal to reduce the debt burden on
FairPoint and to provide enforceable service quality and
broadband buildout standards.
CWA radio and online ads have been urging the public
to send e-mails to lawmakers from the campaign's
website, www.stopthesalenow.com.
Meanwhile this week, the Portland Phoenix community
newspaper exposed the unrealistic assumptions in
FairPoint business plan as presented to the Maine PUC.
According to the article, the company's "success depends
on, among other specious ideas, the price of gasoline
remaining constant for the next seven years. (Another
of those specious ideas is that the unions, whose
contracts expire in late 2008, will accept zero-percent
raises for the next seven years.)"
IN BRIEF:
- It
took nine years, a lawsuit and some 400,000 injured
workers before the Bush administration had its arm
twisted hard enough to issue a rule requiring
employers to pay for personal protective gear for
workers in dangerous jobs.
The rule, requiring employers to pay for
such items as hard hats, lifelines, face shields and
gloves, was first proposed in 1999. Then the Bush
administration came to power and the rule was
abandoned. A lawsuit by the AFL-CIO and the United
Food and Commercial Workers and a congressional
deadline have now forced the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration to act.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said that workers in
some of America's most dangerous industries, such as
meatpacking, poultry and construction, "have been
vulnerable to being forced by their employers to pay
for their own safety gear because of OSHA's failure
to finish the rule."
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House
Education and Labor Committee, said, "It should
have never taken the threat of a lawsuit and
legislation to get the Department of Labor to take
these simple steps to protect workers from everyday
jobsite hazards and prevent thousands of workplace
injuries each year."
- Its name conjures up images of marching
bands but, in fact, the Drum Major Institute is a
non-partisan group that's fighting for America's
middle class. And they've recently unveiled a
website to further the cause.
At the easy-to-use site,
www.themiddleclass.org, visitors can learn about
legislation affecting working families and how their
state's senators and representatives voted. The site
also provides video about featured bills, quotes
from experts and facts and figures from DMI's
Injustice Index.
The website grew out of annual reports on domestic
legislation produced by DMI, which is formally
called the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a
name derived from a Martin Luther King Jr. quote.
"Once a year just isn't enough," DMI says on its
website. "We need to understand what Congress is
voting on as they are voting on it if we truly want
to hold them accountable."
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