| October
13, 2006
As early bargaining for 40,000 CWA-represented state
workers in New Jersey got underway, CWA sent a clear message
to the state legislature not to interfere in the collective
bargaining process.
At the bargaining table this week, CWA District 1 Vice
President Chris Shelton said the union would do everything in
its power to protect the principle of collective bargaining
and to stop any assault on the gains state workers have
made.
Some members of the state legislature want public workers
to bear the brunt of the state's budget deficit — as well as
proposed property tax cuts — and are calling for big cuts in
public workers' health care and retirement security.
Some legislators even want to cut lump sum sick leave
retirement pay and reduce the number of holidays for state
workers, among other cuts.
CWAers also packed a hearing of the Joint Legislative
Committee on Public Employee Benefits Reform in Trenton on
Oct. 12 to deliver the same message: the legislature shouldn't
interfere with collective bargaining.
CWA Locals 1031, 1032, 1033, 1034, 1037, 1039 and 1040 are
mobilizing members for what could be a very tough round of
bargaining, Shelton said.
CWA has pointed out that tax cuts for the rich and other
irresponsible budget gimmicks over the years have caused the
budget deficit. Over years of bargaining, CWA public workers
in New Jersey have sacrificed wages and agreed to increases in
out of pocket health care costs to keep health care and
retirement security.
The current contract expires June 30, 2007.
Union members, workers' advocates and newspaper editorial
boards across the country are continuing to express their
outrage at the recent National Labor Relations Board decision
that could cost millions of workers their right to union
representation.
In Buffalo, N.Y., this week, CWA nurses and other health
care workers represented by Locals 1168 and 1133, along with
members of telecom Local 1122, joined other union and
community activists for a noon rally in front of a business
partnership building on Main Street.
The message to the community, Local 1168 President John
Klein said, is this: "We represent health care workers and if
our employer decides to challenge our bargaining unit, it
could drastically affect health care in our area."
The 3-2 decision by the NLRB's Republican majority gives
employers the right to classify many nurses with minor
supervisory duties as supervisors, making them ineligible to
belong to a union. Experts say the ruling could affect not
just nurses but an estimated 8 million workers in many jobs
and industries.
Klein said he's concerned that even many union members, let
alone other Americans, don't yet understand the ruling or its
potential impact. In health care, he said, nurses without
union protection are less likely to speak out about issues
affecting patient care out of fear for their jobs. "It's a
huge impact, and that's what the public does not understand,"
he said.
The rally in Buffalo, which was covered by the local
newspaper and a radio station, was organized by the
community's Coalition for Economic Justice. Unions and their
community partners were already e-mailing each other the day
after the Wednesday rally to plan future events about the
decision and workers' issues as Election Day approaches.
Meanwhile, many newspapers are decrying the decision:
- "This is one more step curbing the power of organized
labor since President Bush came to office," the New York
Times said in an editorial titled "Kicked While Down." "Far
from balancing the scales, the anti-union drive comes when
workers are already at a historic low in bargaining
strength? We are getting closer and closer to a work force
with no benefits and no substantive
protections."
- "Spinning out this rationale means that teachers who
direct classroom aides could be barred from union
membership, as could any professional worker who has a
secretary," the St. Petersburg Times wrote. "In a time of
growing income inequality, union membership seems to be one
of the few ways workers can still get ahead. For the
NLRB to stretch the definition of a supervisor in order to
exclude a large swath of the labor force from these
potential benefits is just another way that workers are
being stripped of their leverage in the
workplace."
- "If you have just a tiny bit of authority at work — say
the task of telling a custodian whose offices to clean —
does that make you a supervisor? If so, then an awful lot of
people could find themselves with a tiny bit of authority,"
said the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Companies that want to
weaken unions may designate lots of employees as
supervisors. Before you know it, the only person without a
title would be the summer intern."
More information about the supervisor decision is
available at
http://www.aflcio.org/ and
http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/.
- Striking Goodyear employees represented by the
Steelworkers in Tyler, Texas, got a boost on Oct. 11 when
members of IUE-CWA Local 86782 from Trane manufacturing
showed up on their picket line.
"We wanted
them to know we are united," Local 86782 President Tony
Hayes told KLTV-7. "We understand it's a fight for all
Americans, to protect the quality of the jobs we have here,
and to preserve jobs for the Americans who still have good
paying manufacturing jobs in the United States."
Some
12,000 Steelworkers have on strike for a week at 16 Goodyear
plants across the United States and Canada. They are
fighting Goodyear's plan to close plants in Tyler and
Gadsden, Texas, and cut wages and benefits.
- A Pennsylvania jury says Wal-Mart violated the
state's labor laws by forcing workers to skip breaks and
stay beyond their shifts without overtime pay, a decision
that could lead to millions of dollars in
damages.
The verdict came down Thursday,
Oct. 12, and the jury was deliberating on damages Friday. A
similar case in December awarded $172 million to 116,000
current and former Wal-Mart workers who were denied breaks.
At least 57 other wage-and-hour cases against the company
have been filed across the country.
The Pennsylvania
case was brought on behalf of 187,000 current and former
Wal-Mart workers who collectively missed more than 33
million rest breaks from 1998 to 2001. "I think this proves
that Wal-Mart's sweatshop mind-set persists," Chris Kofinis,
a spokesman for WakeUp Wal-Mart told the Washington Post.
"There is some point where Wal-Mart will have to listen and
it's got to treat its workers with respect and
fairness."
- Citizens for Tax Justice has made it easy to
find out how residents in your state are faring under the
Bush tax cuts, which have given back $70 billion to the
richest Americans this year alone.
The group
has released a state-by-state breakdown showing how tax
breaks for capital gains and dividends, reductions in
personal income tax rates, estate tax cuts and an array of
corporate tax loopholes have effected state residents at
different income levels.
In Ohio, for instance, the
wealthiest residents are averaging nearly $30,000 a year in
tax breaks under the Bush scheme. The poorest 60 percent is
averaging just $403 a year.
But even that meager
amount isn't what it seems, CTJ said. In addition to being
skewed toward the wealthiest Americans, the tax cuts are
being paid for with borrowed money, meaning "the cost of
paying the added national debt more than wipes out any
benefits from the tax cuts for 99 percent of residents in
each state."
If you're part of the 99 percent in
Ohio, that means that the added debt from 2001 through 2006
outweighs your tax cuts by an average of $7,163 per person.
Find your state's fact sheet at
http://www.ctj.org/.
- Five Nobel Prize winners are among 650
economists who are urging Congress to raise the federal
minimum wage, saying the real value of today's paltry $5.15
wage is less than it has been since
1951.
"We believe that a modest increase in
the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage
workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics
have claimed," the economists said in a joint statement this
week.
They said further that research shows the most
minimum wage earners aren't teenagers, as critics contend.
Rather they are adult women from low-income working
families.
"As economists who are concerned about the
problems facing low-wage workers, we believe the Fair
Minimum Wage Act of 2005's proposed phased-in increase in
the federal minimum wage to $7.25 falls well within the
range of options where the benefits to the labor market,
workers, and the overall economy would be positive," the
statement concludes.
Republican leaders have thwarted
all efforts to raise the minimum wage over the past 10
years. Meanwhile, members of Congress have seen their annual
salaries increase by more than $30,000.
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