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June 28, 2007
July 4, 2007 -
HAPPY
INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Senate
Majority Backs Employee Free Choice Act,
But GOP Filibuster
Blocks Passage – For Now
The U.S. Senate's majority support for the Employee
Free Choice Act this week shows what unions can and will
accomplish in 2009 after America's working families
elect a pro-worker president and gain more seats in
Congress, CWA President Larry Cohen said.
"This was a terrific accomplishment. We can all be
proud of the role CWA played in getting all 51 votes on
the Senate floor, as well as the overwhelming majority
we won in the House in March," Cohen said. "Our members,
staff and officers went all out, as did other unions,
and clearly demonstrated to Congress that a majority of
Americans support organizing and bargaining rights. A
year ago, no one would have imagined that we could have
gotten majority congressional support for this bill in
the face of enormous opposition from corporate
lobbyists."
"Now we are going to spend the next year and half
pouring our energy and passion and outrage into electing
a president and new members of Congress who will stand
up for American workers and their right to join a union
and bargain collectively," he said. "And when we do, the
Employee Free Choice Act will become law."
The Senate voted 51-48 for cloture, the process to
shut off a filibuster, or "extended debate," by
opponents and allow a bill to be voted on. Senate
rules, however, require 60 votes for cloture, meaning a
simple majority is not enough to pass legislation. Had
it passed, President Bush vowed to veto it.
In urging the Senate to pass the bill, CWA and other
union members nationwide generated 50,000 phone calls,
156,000 faxes and e-mail messages, and 220,000
postcards, including 120,000 delivered to the Senate
last week alone, according to the AFL-CIO. Last Tuesday,
about 4,500 union members including many from CWA turned
out for a Capitol Hill rally across from the Senate as
lawmakers opened debate on the bill.
A similar campaign helped propel the Employee Free
Choice Act through the U.S. House, where it passed
241-185 in March.
Cohen laid out three specific steps that CWA will
take to ensure that the bill ultimately passes in both
houses of Congress:
- Continue to educate union households and the
public about the decline of collective bargaining
and the need to restore bargaining and organizing
rights.
- Elect a president in 2008 who will lead the
effort to enact this legislation.
- Develop strategies in the Senate that allow for
passage of the Employee Free Choice Act with
majority support instead of the 60 votes needed to
cut off debate. This is the strategy that was used
to enact the first increase in the minimum wage in
10 years by including the measure in an
appropriations bill.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who sponsored the bill
in the Senate, made an impassioned speech on its behalf
before the cloture vote Tuesday. Later he admonished GOP
members for abandoning working Americans -- with the
noted exception of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the only
Republican to vote for the bill.
"I am proud that a majority of my colleagues stood up
for working families. I regret that more of my
Republican colleagues do not share this vision for a
better America," Kennedy said. "Although we were blocked
today we will not give up and we will not give in.
I can promise that we will be back. There may be
obstacles along the way, but we'll keep up the fight
until we get a victory for working families."
Media Takes Note of Unique CWA Internet Speed Survey
CWA's release this week of the first-ever national
state-by-state Internet speed survey, showing that
actual user speeds for broadband services in the United
States are far below speeds in most other developed
nations, drew widespread media coverage.
USA Today featured the CWA Speed Matters survey on
its front page on Tuesday, headlined, "U.S. Net Access
Not All that Speedy," and other stories appeared in
dozens of newspapers and on technology websites and
blogs following release of the report by Pres. Larry
Cohen in a teleconference with reporters.
The survey of 80,000 Internet broadband users who
took a real-time speed test at CWA's Speed Matters
website shows a median U.S. download speed of 1.9
megabits per second (mbps), compared, for instance, with
61 mbps in Japan, 45 mbps in South Korea, 17 mbps in
France and 7 mbps in Canada. More than 95 percent
of the participants used DSL and cable modems.
"We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the
world. People don't pay attention to the fact that
the country that started the commercial Internet is
falling woefully behind," USA Today quoted Cohen.
"In order to maintain our place in today's global
economy – and to create the jobs we need – our
government must act."
The survey report, posted at
www.SpeedMatters.org, breaks down speeds for every
state and the District of Columbia, with rankings
showing Alaska at the bottom with a median download
speed of about one-half mbps, and Rhode Island No. 1 at
5 mbps.
Maps for each state show the speeds in various
geographic locations – graphically demonstrating that
the higher speeds tend to be around larger cities, with
rural areas showing patches of red indicating speeds
less than 768 kilobits per second (kbps).
The fact that the CWA national speed test report is
unique actually spotlights a huge problem – the U.S.
government has no idea where high speed services are
deployed and what they cost, Cohen told reporters,
noting that the Federal Communications Commission uses a
badly outdated definition for "broadband" of 200 kbps,
barely faster than dial-up.
To rectify the problem and help move toward a
national high speed policy, CWA is supporting a Senate
bill, the Broadband Data Improvement Act (S.1492), which
raises the broadband speed definition and calls for
federal collection of deployment data with grants to
states and communities for high speed mapping.
Unions are included as part of planning teams to receive
grants for development projects.
"The benefits of true broadband access for
communicating across the country are innumerable," Cohen
said in releasing the study. "From e-government
and distance learning to telemedicine and public safety,
high speed Internet access for all Americans, rural and
urban, is essential to improving the quality of our
economic, civic and personal lives."
CWA Nurses Hope
"Sicko" Will Spur Health Reform
Calling their cause "Scrubs for Sicko," CWA nurses
are part of a huge coalition of nurses and doctors who
are rallying around the new Michael Moore movie – titled
"Sicko" – examining America's badly broken health care
system.
Campaign organizers are recruiting nurses and
doctors, wearing their scrubs, to be in the audience of
every theater in the nation when Sicko opens Friday. The
medical workers will distribute information urging
moviegoers to join them in pushing lawmakers for
universal health care.
Buffalo, N.Y., CWA nurses Mary Janice Keller, area
vice president for Local 1168, and Mary Gavin, a member
of the Local 1133 executive board, were guests of the
California Nurses Association for a June 12 sneak
preview of the film and a rally and hearings at the
state capitol in Sacramento, where lawmakers are
considering several health care bills. They plan
to take part in the weekend scrubs events and to
encourage other members to participate.
The nurses said that even though they deal daily with
the inefficiency, unfairness and sometimes tragic
shortcomings of today's system of health insurance, the
movie was jolting. Rather than focus on societys' poor
and uninsured, the movie looks at the plight of middle
class people who think they're taken care of because
they have insurance.
"I went from laughter to tears," Gavin said. "It was
very touching, very moving and informative. No matter
how people feel about Michael Moore, he's tackled
something that most people won't deal with. People need
to see this."
Keller said Moore spent a long time talking with
nurses at the California event and to two people
featured in the movie – a mother whose ailing baby died
after a hospital refused care because it wasn't
affiliated with the family's insurance company, and a
doctor who worked for an insurance company and got tired
of denying claims.
Both women said they were invigorated by the
overnight trip and call to action. "It really motivated
me," Gavin said. "I've definitely understood that we
need health care reform but the movie has motivated me
to do something about it."
Thousands in NYC Protest Verizon Anti-Union Policies
As this issue went to press, thousands of CWA and
IBEW members were descending upon Verizon's New York
City headquarters to stage a "We Won't Back Down" rally
tonight, June 28, to protest the company's anti-worker
and anti-customer policies. Some 2,000 workers were
expected at the rally, with many bussing in from New
England and Mid-Atlantic States.
The CWA and IBEW union members, supported by dozens
of leaders from other unions and elected officials from
New York City and New York State, organized the rally to
spotlight Verizon's ongoing union-busting against
Verizon Business employees and the sale of the company's
northern New England access lines to the tiny and
ill-equipped Fairpoint Communications. The rally
is also the beginning of mobilization in preparation for
2008 contract negotiations at Verizon.
The rally, staged outside the company's Manhattan
offices at 140 West Street, was scheduled to begin at
6:00 p.m. with introductory remarks by District 1 Vice
President Chris Shelton. CWA and IBEW leaders
representing workers in regions affected by the
Verizon-Fairpoint deal – CWA Local 1301 President George
Alcott, Braintree, Mass., Local 1400 President Cheryl
Ahern, Portsmouth, N.H., and IBEW New England T-6
Council President Miles Calvey -- were set to address
the marchers. Support also came from the presidents of
the RWDSU, UFT, state AFL-CIO, and Central Labor Council
as well as from numerous elected state and city office
holders.
IN BRIEF:
- CWA members and retirees, community
supporters, elected officials and activists
concerned about the possible closing of the Alcatel
Lucent facility in North Andover, Mass., rallied at
the local community college on June 24 to show their
determination to keep the plant open.
CWA Vice President Ralph Maly, communications and
technologies, said CWA will do what is necessary "to
come up with a comprehensive proposal" to meet the
company's demand for $6.6 million in cost savings.
But Alcatel Lucent's demand that those savings must
come from just 250 union workers is completely
unreasonable and unfair, he said. Maly also
noted that Alcatel Lucent has yet to respond to
CWA's request for more information.
Gary Nilsson, president of CWA Local 1365, said the
company's demands would require givebacks of $33,000
per employee. Instead, CWA is working to achieve
those savings in other ways. "We make money for
Alcatel Lucent at North Andover," Nilsson said.
Joining the demonstration was North Andover Mayor
James Fiorentini, candidates for the state
legislature and representatives from the AFL-CIO who
pledged labor's full support.
- IUE-CWA members this week voted to
ratify their new four-year contract with General
Electric with 79 percent approving the agreement,
which boosts wages by 16 percent and provides
significant pension increases for the 10,000
workers. "We are happy that the majority of
members agreed with the national bargaining
committee and Conference Board in recognizing the
value that this contract brings to them and their
families," said IUE-CWA GE Conference Board Chairman
Bob Santamoor. Details of the contract can be
found at
www.geworkersunited.org.
- The UAW last week agreed to a tentative
labor pact with Delphi covering about 17,000
members. Meanwhile, IUE-CWA leadership remains
in Troy, Mich., where Delphi is headquartered, and
continues to bargain on behalf of the remaining
1,500 workers it represents at Delphi.
"We are studying the details of the UAW
settlement," said Willie Thorpe, chair of the
IUE-CWA Automotive Conference Board and head of the
bargaining committee. "We have different
circumstances at our sites. We are determined
to negotiate the best agreement possible that will
preserve jobs and provide wages and benefits that
will support working families."
- Wal-Mart's "falling prices" are far more
costly to the American economy than its shoppers
know – or perhaps want to know: Its deals with
manufacturers in China cost 200,000 American jobs
between 2001 and 2006.
In its weekly snapshot, the Economic Policy
Institute looks at the massive U.S. trade deficit
with China and finds that Wal-Mart was responsible
for $27 billion of it just last year. The total U.S.
trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in
2006.
"On average, 77 U.S. jobs were eliminated for each
one of Wal-Mart's 4,022 U.S. stores in 2006," EPI
said, noting that manufacturing workers have been
hardest hit, losing more than two-thirds of the
200,000 jobs affected over the last five years.
"Wal-Mart's huge reliance on Chinese imports
illustrates that many powerful economic actors in
the United States benefit from China's policy of
maintaining an undervalued yuan, its abuse of labor
rights, and other fair-trade norms," EPI said.
"Wal-Mart's benefit, however, is not the country's
gain, as these policies have contributed directly to
the ever-growing trade deficit that imperils future
economic growth."
The full snapshot and link to a longer report are
available at
www.epinet.org.
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