HAPPY 4th OF JULY!

• Tentative Guild Pact in Rochester After 16 Years
• AT&T Sales Reps, Substitute Teachers, Health Care Workers Join CWA
• Floods, Tornadoes Deal Double Blow to CWAers in Midwest
• "The Source" – Convention Photos, Newsletter Awards & More

Tentative Guild Pact in Rochester After 16 Years

Nearly 16 years after their last contract expired and 19 months after management declared impasse, newsroom employees at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in upstate New York have a new tentative agreement.

Steve Orr, president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA Local 31017 during the entire struggle, said the gains are modest but that having any contract after so many years is a victory.

"I think for those of us in the leadership of the local, it's more a sense of relief," said Orr, an investigative reporter. "I don't think anybody is unrealistic about it. We know that a lot of what we sought we weren't able to get, but we have some fundamental job protections, fundamental benefits, the right to arbitration — a lot of things we'd been lacking for years. Having this contract is far better than having no contract."

The local represents about 90 newsroom employees who are expected to vote on the contract as soon as next week.

Members of the Rochester Newspaper Guild rallied over the years to build support for their long contract fight at the Democrat and Chronicle in upstate New York. They are expected to vote in the next week on a tentative contract reached after 16 years of bargaining.

Bargaining had gone on for 14 years when Gannett declared impasse in late 2006. Employees were working under the terms of the imposed contract when Gannett last month announced it was freezing its company-wide pension plan, opening the door to new talks.

Orr and his coworkers learned about the pension freeze via a Gannett memo leaked to a journalism website. The company was offsetting the freeze with an enhanced 401(k) plan that the Rochester workers had never been offered.

Gannett itself realized the employees would now have no retirement plan, and offered to bargain the terms of a 401(k). The union "saw this as an opportunity to get back to the table and see if we could wrap things up," Orr said.

In short order, he said they "were shaking hands" on the tentative agreement. "We sought to get some additional improvements from what they had imposed," he said. "We got very modest improvements in layoff language and discipline language. It wasn't what we'd wanted, but we felt it was better to have a contract with so-so protections in it than to have no contract with no protections."

The 401(k) plan includes a 5 percent company match and an additional 2 percent contribution, with no matching funds required, for veteran employees. Wage increases continue to be linked to a merit play plan that the local agreed to long ago. Health care coverage is also unchanged, though Orr said employees' out-of-pocket costs will rise as the company's grow.

The Rochester Guild stood strong over the years, even as Guild units at some Gannett papers were persuaded to decertify when management dangled the 401(k) plan in front of them.

AT&T Sales Reps, Substitute Teachers, Health Care Workers Join CWA

Last week, nearly 800 workers organized with CWA following campaigns in New Jersey, California, and South Carolina. All organized through majority signup.

In the first of the victories, reported June 20, 68 professional employees at the Richard Hall Mental Health Center in Somerset County, N.J., gained representation with Local 1037, reported District  1 Vice President Chris Shelton. The unit includes psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, and case workers. Regaining a voice on the job and getting good representation are major issues. The workers lost their collective bargaining rights in January when their former union declined to continue representing them. The local has filed for recognition of the supervisory unit and is working to gain support among the center's non-professional staff.

On June 22, 498 substitute teachers working for the Santa Ana, Calif., school district won union certification from California's Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) following a year-long campaign, according to District 9 Vice President Tony Bixler. They will be represented by Local 9510. Low pay and lack of pay parity with full-time teachers is their major concern.

This is the second group of substitutes that CWA has organized in the state. The local succeeded in getting a large majority of the substitutes to sign cards requesting union representation following a year of developing contacts, sending out literature and phone banking. Because of the large margin of support, the California PERB granted union recognition instead of requiring an election. The PERB also agreed to accrete into the bargaining unit the up to 500 more substitutes who are expected to be hired by the school district in the fall.

On June 23, AT&T Mobility's statewide unit of 218 retail sales representatives in South Carolina won representation with CWA, reports District 3 Vice President Noah Savant. A coordinated organizing effort by seven locals overcame the geographic challenges posed by organizing workers at dozens of stores across the state.

To get union representation under CWA's card check agreement with AT&T, a majority of workers must sign cards within 60 days, but the locals accomplished the task in just 45. This is the first group of A&T Mobility workers to be organized in South Carolina. Major concerns for the sales reps are the cost of health care benefits and job security.

Floods, Tornadoes Deal Double Blow to CWAers in Midwest

Between a Memorial Day weekend tornado and floods of historic proportions in June, CWA members in the Midwest have had more than their share of natural disasters for 2008.

Local officers and CWA staff are still compiling lists of affected members in Iowa, Indiana and other parts of the Midwest and are providing information to victims about aid available through the CWA Disaster Relief Fund.

In addition, some locals have taken up donations and set up bank accounts for victims. District 7 members attending the CWA convention last week collected more than $2,300 for Iowa victims of the Parkersburg tornado and the subsequent floods.

"I think they're just still reeling from it all," said Local 7170 President Bonnie Winther. "There's just so much damage. You can't imagine what these people are going through."

Winther's Waterloo local includes Parkersburg, about 20 miles west, where two members' homes were damaged by the May 25 tornado. She described driving through the town and "not being acclimated anymore" because so many buildings were destroyed. On June 10, floodwaters poured through her Waterloo neighborhood, sparing her own slightly elevated home and damaging and destroying scores of others.

Another CWA local leader was not as lucky. CWA Representative Midge Slater said Local 7108 President Matt Porter lost his Waterloo house, with his wife soon due to give birth to their fifth child.

CWA members in the Indianapolis area of Indiana were also victims of dual disasters, a May 30 tornado and June floods. Local 4900 President Pam Siefers said she's heard of at least nine people displaced by water and two whose apartments were damaged by the tornado.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, southeast of Waterloo, floodwaters reached mid-level shelves on the first floor of the city's library, where 40 CWA members work. Between water and mold, Local 7101 President Joie Welsh said the library's entire collection may be lost. Employees have been assigned to satellite libraries for now. She said no cleaning or salvage efforts are underway in the damaged building because it is too contaminated.

Another CWA business in Cedar Rapids, Ad Craft, suffered extensive water damage to all its printing equipment, temporarily putting four of her members out of work, Welsh said. But she noted that the company's union-friendly owner asked for the name of another CWA printer so he could send his customers there until he's back in business.

Two library workers had significant damage to their homes and Welsh said the secretary of her local, Dean Shannon, lost his house. Several days earlier she dropped him off after a union meeting and saw a Weather Channel van parked in front of the house. "I said, 'Dean, this can't be a good sign.'"

She said he and his wife had managed to pack and move a few things but not nearly what they'd hoped to save by the time emergency workers knocked on their door and gave them 20 minutes to evacuate.

According to media reports, the record-breaking flood left at least 438 city blocks in Cedar Rapids under water, which was 8 feet high in some neighborhoods. The Cedar River crested at nearly 32 feet, 12 feet higher than the previous worst flood in 1929.

The aftermath of the storm has kept Qwest members in Iowa working around the clock. Another busy CWA unit has been the Cedar Rapids jailers and dispatchers. As the storm approached, Welsh said jailers took prisoners out to stack sandbags.

Members who have suffered losses in the Midwest storms, California fires or other disasters are urged to contract their locals for information about and help applying for aid from the CWA Disaster Relief Fund. Emergency aid is also available from Union Privilege for Union Plus credit card holders. For more information go online to www.unionplus.org/disaster-relief.cfm or call (877) 761-5028 to speak with a representative.

"The Source" – Convention Photos, Newsletter Awards & More

The Source, CWA's website for local union communicators has been updated with photos from last week's 70th annual convention (June 23-25), in addition to the judges' report on the winners of CWA's annual newsletter and website contest.

The latest updates on The Source this week also include two new videos — one featuring workers talking about the importance of passing the Employee Free Choice Act, and the other Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in his address to convention delegates.

Growing numbers of local union editors, officers, and organizers are how using The Source regularly to update local union publications and websites, and get useful tools to improve and enhance their communications with members. Photos of union-related events – conferences, demonstrations – as well as clip art and cartoons are also regularly uploaded on The Source. Information and material about CWA's key issue campaigns (the Employee Free Choice Act, Speed Matters, etc.) are also posted on the website.

An important reminder: CWA's activist e-mail Newsletter is published every week on The Source, and past issues have been archived. The Source can be reached by clicking the "Tools for Communicators" link on CWA's homepage or by going directly to the website at www.cwa-union.org/source.