February 22, 2007
Bargaining
Process Triumphs over Political Intimidation
With New Jersey State Worker Tentative Agreement
Negotiating against a threat by state lawmakers to
impose extreme concessions, CWA state workers in New
Jersey reached a tentative contract settlement with Gov.
Jon Corzine that "clearly demonstrates the value of the
collective bargaining process," District 1 Vice
President Chris Shelton stated.
The agreement, covering 40,000 workers and subject to
member ratification, provides a 13 percent wage increase
over four years — the first state worker pact in 15
years that doesn't call for a wage freeze.
Even after some increased benefit deductions, the
settlement will deliver a compounded increase in real
wages of 12 percent, Shelton noted. Recognizing massive
shortfalls in state pension funding and rising health
care costs, CWA also agreed to a .5 percent increase in
the workers' pre-tax pension contribution and a 1.5
percent pre-tax contribution to health care costs.
At the same time, the tentative settlement improves
the health care system by providing for an expanded PPO
network, eliminating restrictions on use of specialists
and guaranteeing no changes in benefits over the
contract term.
While the age for full retirement was raised from 55
to 60 for new employees, the penalty for early
retirement was reduced from 3 percent to 1 percent per
year for those five years.
Reacting to a public clamor over high property taxes,
state legislative leaders earlier proposed a bill that
would have drastically increased benefit costs, removed
future workers from the pension system entirely, and
would have imposed many other concessions in hours
worked, reduced leave time and other cutbacks.
Gov. Corzine joined thousands of CWA and other union
members who protested the legislative scheme last year,
calling for letting the collective bargaining process
work. Lawmakers grudgingly withdrew the bill, but kept a
drumbeat of pressure on Corzine to press for
concessions.
"After 18 months of finger-pointing and scapegoating,
this contract represents a real victory for state
workers," said Shelton. "We bargained in the most
difficult environment we've faced since (Christie)
Whitman was governor, at a time when private sector
pensions and health care are virtually collapsing."
Capitol Hill
Forum and Events Nationwide
Boost Employee Free Choice Act
The Employee Free Choice Act is the best, first step
to reinvigorate the U.S. labor movement and rebuild the
now-diminished American Dream for millions of working
families, speakers at a Capitol Hill forum sponsored by
the Economic Policy Institute said Thursday.
"When people talk about 'good jobs' they act as if
they came down from the sky," said Beth Shulman, author
of "The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30
Million Americans and Their Families. "They weren't
always good jobs. They became that way because of
unionization."
Yale economist and New York Times columnist Paul
Krugman, professors and researchers from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and the
University of California joined Shulman and EPI staff
for the second annual forum, part of EPI's "Agenda for
Shared Prosperity."
"A rising tide of inequality threatens the
foundations of a system built on fundamental fairness,"
EPI said. "Millions of families cannot, despite all
their work, attain the necessary means for basic
self-sufficiency. Meanwhile prospects for the next
generation are dimming: In 2000, the average young high
school-educated worker started out earning $5,000 less
(adjusted for inflation) than those who entered the
labor force 30 years ago."
Papers presented by the forum speakers and more
information about EPI's ongoing Agenda for Shared
Prosperity is available online at
www.epinet.org.
The forum fell during a week of media events,
lobbying efforts and other activities being staged by
CWA and other unions across the country to help
lawmakers and all Americans understand the Employee Free
Choice Act and why it's so critical.
Interviewed Thursday on the nationally syndicated Ed
Schultz radio show, CWA President Larry Cohen explained
how grossly today's labor laws favor employers at the
expense of workers and America's shrinking middle-class.
"Now it's up to management — whatever they want to
deal out," Cohen said. "They want to eliminate pensions,
they're gone. They want to eliminate health care. It's
gone. They want to outsource your job. It's gone."
After ending the interview, Schultz urged his
listeners to pay attention to the bill as it progresses
in Congress and said, "This is going to draw the battle
lines of who's for the American worker and who isn't."
Death of
Verizon Tech Prompts Protest against Job Stress
One week following the on-the-job death of a
co-worker, more than 100 Verizon workers and
supporters in southern California demonstrated outside
the company's Long Beach headquarters on Feb. 19 to
protest the company's increased workload.
The workers, members of CWA Local 9586, said that the
company's increased daily quota on the number of jobs to
be completed by technicians has led to increased stress,
forcing some older techs to retire early. "Verizon's
increased productivity requirements are brutal and are
pushing employees too far," said local president Gregg
Gibson.
A week earlier, 30-year employee and fellow union
member Gerry De Cou died of a heart attack while
completing a job at a customer's home. Gibson said De
Cou had complained to management that very morning that
he was undergoing tremendous stress because of the
increased productivity requirements. He made the same
complaint to supervisors two weeks earlier. According to
Gibson, the company has been shifting more workers over
to FIOS work, placing a greater workload on technicians
left to handle copper wire jobs.
"I want to thank all of my brothers and sisters from
NABET and other CWA locals — 9000, 9400, 9510, 9573,
9575, 9586, 9587, 9588 — for traveling here from all
over southern California to stand tall with us in the
rain at 5:30 in the morning," said Gibson. "Together, we
showed that we are strong."
Workers were joined in their demonstration by Long
Beach city councilwoman Tonya Reyes Uranga who urged
Verizon to negotiate with CWA on the issue. "I strongly
urge Verizon discuss this labor dispute with CWA."
Kentucky PSC Orders Review of Windstream Job Pledge
Thanks to CWA's intervention in public service
commission proceedings, Windstream Communications may
face a stay in its efforts to lay off 46 workers in
Kentucky. The State PSC has ordered Windstream to
respond within 20 days to a complaint filed by CWA, the
IBEW and the state's attorney general, stating that the
company has violated a no-layoff agreement it made in
December 2005.
In December 2005, Alltel Communications set out to
shed its wireline properties. The company announced it
would purchase wireline provider Valor Communications
for $9.1 billion, merge Valor with its own wireline
operation and spin off the new wireline entity as
Windstream, leaving Alltel as a strictly wireless
provider.
CWA, representing 1,200 Alltel employees in eight
states, intervened with public service commissions in
Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Nebraska to protect members'
jobs, making certain that the deal was structured so
that if the new company, Windstream, failed, creditors
could not come after its holdings to repay debt.
In May 2006, the Kentucky PSC approved Alltel's
spinoff of Windstream based on the company's assertion
that, "There are no plans to change either the number or
types of employees currently working (for the company)
if the transaction is approved."
CWA, IBEW and the attorney general filed their
complaint seeking enforcement of the agreement on Feb.
12, following Winstream's January announcement it would
lay off members of CWA Locals 3371 and 3372, and other
workers.
IN BRIEF:
- A Pennsylvania appeals court has
reversed the state's approval of the 2005
Verizon-MCI merger, stating the Pennsylvania Public
Utility Commission failed to comply with the law by
approving the merger without conditions.
In its Feb. 20 ruling, the court sent the matter
back to the state's Public Utility Commission (PUC),
directing the body to "either reject the merger or
impose conditions that will benefit the public in a
substantial way." Said Pennsylvania Commonwealth
Court Judge Dan Pellegrini, "We find that there was
no evidence that the merger of Verizon and MCI in
Pennsylvania would affirmatively promote the
service, accommodation, convenience or safety of the
public in some substantial way."
When the merger was before the state for approval
earlier, CWA had argued that service quality for
consumers and quality jobs for workers should be
major points for approving the merger.
- The laughably
self-proclaimed "fair and balanced" news channel was
anything but funny this week with an outrageous
claim that American teachers' unions are more
threatening than terrorists.
Appearing on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes
program, right-wing radio host Neal Boortz claimed
that teachers unions are "destroying a generation"
and are "much more dangerous than al Qaeda."
As reported in a transcript on the website,
www.thinkprogress.org, Boortz said, "Look, Al
Qaeda, they could bring in a nuke into this country
and kill 100,000 people with a well-placed nuke
somewhere. Ok. We would recover from that. It would
be a terrible tragedy, but the teachers unions in
this country can destroy a generation." Host Sean
Hannity agreed, saying, "They are ruining our school
system."
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