February 1, 2007
CWA Filing Prompts Job Guarantees
at Commonwealth Tel
Citizens Frontier this week agreed to job protections
for CWA workers in its bid to buy Commonwealth Telephone
operations in Pennsylvania, settling objections raised
by CWA and others with the Public Utility Commission
over the impact of the deal on jobs and service.
Citizens Frontier agreed to keep open the
Commonwealth call center in Wilkes-Barre and to retain
at least 95 percent of the union workforce through the
end of the current contract in November 2008, reported
District 13 Vice President Jim Short and
Telecommunications Vice President Jimmy Gurganus.
CWA represents 440 Commonwealth Tel workers and
another 1,200 at Citizens Frontier units nationwide.
CWA's earlier filing with the PUC, opposing the sale
in the absence of job and service guarantees, was backed
by Pennsylvania Consumer Advocate Sonny Popowsky, who
stated: "Our concern is quality of service and you can't
maintain service without people."
The company also agreed to cap its basic telephone
rates for three years in the settlement agreement, which
is expected to clear the way for the PUC's approval of
the deal.
"As we see more and more mergers and consolidations in
rural telecommunications, our strategy of intervening in
PUC proceedings, and linking quality service with jobs,
has proven successful in protecting our jobs and
contracts," Gurganus said. He noted that such
interventions also give CWA legal standing in the event
of later proceedings to enforce PUC orders to the
companies.
Unions Protest Lexington Chamber's Shameless Seminar
While business owners and managers gathered at a
union-bashing seminar inside the Chamber of Commerce in
Lexington, Ky., on Monday morning, some 40 proud union
members gathered outside with picket signs.
The two-hour demonstration in zero-degree weather
Jan. 29 was arranged by Barbara Pierce,
secretary-treasurer of CWA Local 3372 and new president
of the Bluegrass Central Labor Council. In addition to
CWA members, participants came from the Plumbers,
Teamsters, Carpenters and Letter Carriers.
"We got a lot of traffic coming by — it's on a major
four-lane highway," Local 3372 Executive Vice President
Bryce McGowan said. "People were honking their horns in
support like crazy."
That was an especially good sign in an area that is
often hostile to labor, he said. The event even drew
media attention.
The chamber seminar was titled, "How to Keep Your
Workplace Union-Free." McGowan said CWA learned about it
when the chamber, apparently mass-faxing flyers to
businesses about the $399 program, sent one to the
local's fax machine.
McGowan said a member of the Teamsters paid the fee
to attend. Shortly before it started, the man told
McGowan that there "were 32 people signed up and he was
going to go in and stay as long as he could until he got
sick to his stomach."
The seminar apparently is being put on at chamber
offices throughout the country. McCowan said he knows of
two more coming up in Kentucky, in Louisville and
Bowling Green.
Red Cross Workers Protest Health Demands in 3-day
Strike
About 160 Red Cross workers represented by CWA Local
13000 made a public statement about demands for health
care concessions and management's refusal to bargain
fairly in a three-day strike this week, then returned to
work Jan. 31 to make sure communities that rely on their
services are fully served.
The workers, who staff blood banks and bloodmobiles
in counties across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West
Virginia and Virginia, conducted the unfair labor
practice strike to protest management's refusal to
provide CWA with information it requested concerning
health care costs.
"No one wanted to go on strike, but management forced
this dispute by attacking workers' health care and
demanding huge increases in costs and big cuts in
benefits," said District 13 Vice President Jim Short.
CWA members are asking residents and communities to
urge the Red Cross to bargain a fair contract. Under
some management proposals, workers would pay a high
deductible and a 20-percent premium share, plus 10 to 15
percent of their hospital bills.
Buffalo Marchers Meet with Governor on Hospital
Closings
A wintry 320-mile march from Buffalo to Albany
brought CWA Nurses United/Local 1168 members not only
widespread media attention and public support but
meetings with Gov. Eliot Spitzer and top legislators and
staff on the impact of proposed hospital closings across
New York.
District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton, who along
with CWA President Larry Cohen joined the last leg of
the march to the Statehouse in Albany Jan. 26, reported
a positive meeting with the governor and his key health
care staff.
For the first time, Shelton said CWA leaders heard
the word "flexibility" from the governor and talk from
lawmakers of possibly modifying the Berger Commission
report that late last year mandated closing or
reorganizing nine state-funded hospitals, including
three in Buffalo. About 4,000 CWA jobs could be
affected.
"It's difficult to tell whether we can reverse the
many terrible recommendations this commission has
made. However, we have opened a serious negotiation over
the future of health care in Western New York directly
with Gov. Spitzer," Shelton said.
Local President John Klein said: "It was more than
just a handshake meeting — we were able to make all of
our points and have a serious discussion about the
health care system in New York, which everyone agrees is
in a financial mess." No promises were made, but the
governor committed to keeping "an open door" and
continuing a dialogue with CWA, he said.
Meanwhile, the local is continuing community
awareness and lobbying activities. Last Tuesday evening,
Local 1168 members participated in a Jobs with Justice
Workers' Rights Board hearing in Buffalo on the proposed
closings. Many citizens are alarmed that the closings
would severely limit access to emergency health care
services and present a special hardship to the elderly.
The nurses' public awareness trek was heavily covered
by TV and print media throughout Western New York as the
marchers — beginning with two members who left Buffalo
Jan. 2 and swelling to 200 at the end — braved wind
chill temperatures well below zero at times.
Shelton thanked members from CWA locals throughout
the region for joining the walk and providing support
and hospitality along the way. "Most of all, I salute
Local 1168's members and leadership for their amazing
dedication" to protecting their patients as well as
defending jobs, he said.
Bush Wants to Raise H1-B Visa Limit
Demonstrating yet again his commitment to business
interests at the expense of American workers, President
Bush is calling for an increase in the federal cap on
H1-B visas to allow high-tech workers from other
countries to take jobs in the United States.
The cap is currently set at 65,000, with another
20,000 visas for foreign students who graduate from U.S.
universities with advanced degrees. High-tech executives
want the cap raised to 115,000, which the last Congress
rejected. Now pressure is being exerted on the
new Congress.
Ignoring evidence that high-tech employers are
bypassing qualified American applicants for foreign
workers who may not earn as much, Bush told a thousand
DuPont employees in Delaware last week that he wants to
raise the cap.
To add insult to injury, WashTech-CWA points out that
for the last three years, the administration has failed
to comply with the requirement to submit an annual H1-B
visa report to Congress. A WashTech campaign led several
elected officials to contact the Department of Homeland
Security, which finally released two years of reports.
"They are still a year behind," WashTech said in an
e-mail alert. "This makes it even more ridiculous to
suggest an increase in the number of H1-B visas to be
issued, as President Bush is suggesting."
Another critic, an official with the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., told
ComputerWorld that under the H1-B program, "Employers do
not have to search for Americans, and can prefer an H1-B
[visa holder] over an American citizen or green card
holder."
You can tell Congress to reject what WashTech calls
the Bush "surge" in H1-B visas by using the link at
www.washtech.org or clicking here:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/noH1bSurge/
IN BRIEF:
- In a letter to Comcast CEO Brian
Roberts, Democratic presidential candidate John
Edwards urged the head of the vigorously anti-union
company to stay neutral during his workers'
organizing drives.
"Protecting the right to organize in our democracy
is important because it allows working men and women
to help make decisions that affect their work
lives," Edwards wrote.
The former North Carolina senator said he had
learned that Will Goodo, who tried to organize a
union through CWA at Comcast in Oakland, Calif.,
"was fired under questionable circumstances last
year and that a religious coalition is seeking his
reinstatement."
"I hope and expect that you will protect the right
of workers to organize and that you will review the
circumstances under which Mr. Goodo was fired," his
letter concluded.
- In typical stealth fashion, the Bush
administration has quietly signed an executive order
aimed at ensuring that experts who protect worker
safety, the environment, health policies and more
have no place in government.
The order calls for each of the federal offices to
have a regulatory policy office run not by an expert
but by a political appointee.
"The executive order allows the political staff at
the White House to dictate decisions on health and
safety issues, even if the government's own
impartial experts disagree," Rep. Henry Waxman
(D-Calif.) told The New York Times. "This is a
terrible way to govern, but great news for special
interests."
OMB Watch, a nonprofit research group that tracks
White House policy, said, "The Bush administration
has regularly appointed industry representatives or
allies to oversee agency regulatory activities.
Often this has been dubbed 'foxes in the hen house.'
The executive order amendments add a new dimension
by having the foxes control the hen houses."
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