| August
25, 2006
The recent settlement of a class action suit against Sprint
Corp. has prompted talks between CWA and Embarq — formerly
Sprint's local phone subsidiary before being spun off — over
improvements in Embarq's 401(k) savings plan.
In approving settlement of the suit, which involves some
85,000 class members at both Sprint and Embarq, a U.S.
district court judge in Kansas City recommended that Embarq's
401(k) plan be improved in several ways to match reforms
Sprint has already made. Among these are increasing the
limits on employee tax-free contributions to the plan and
diversification of investment options for matching
contributions, said CWA Telecommunications Vice President
Jimmy Gurganus.
CWA and IBEW represented the 16,500 union workers at Embarq
at a recent "fairness hearing" prior to approval of the
settlement. Besides calling for savings plan
improvements, the court ordered that the workers receive free
one-on-one financial planning assistance from Ameriprise and
also share $4 million dollars, which amounts to an average of
about $63 per class member.
The lawsuit alleged that Sprint's savings plan directors
breached their fiduciary duties by requiring investment in
Sprint stock when they should have known the market value of
the stock was impaired by the proposed merger with
WorldCom.
CWA leaders who are fighting Verizon's plan to sell off its
1.6 million local telephone lines in New England are
encouraged by meetings with regional governors, most recently
New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch.
"I walked away from that meeting feeling very positive,"
said CWA Local 1400 Executive Vice President Meg Collins. "He
seemed to be very understanding of what the sale could mean
for his state."
Lynch hasn't yet joined Maine Gov. John Baldacci in sending
a letter of concern to Verizon, but Collins said union members
are hopeful that he will. Recently U.S. Sens. Patrick
Leahy and James Jeffords and Rep. Bernie Sanders, all of
Vermont, also sent a letter to the company.
A sale would affect about 350 CWA members employed as
service representatives and 2,700 IBEW members who work as
technicians, clerks, operators and service reps. Members have
been mobilizing throughout the summer and are planning many
activities on and around Labor Day.
Union leaders say a Verizon sale would hurt
consumers as well as workers. In Hawaii, for instance, Verizon
sold all its landline operations there to a smaller local
company several years ago. According to the Aug. 18 New
Hampshire Union Leader, "Taking control of more than 80
computer systems set off months of problems for Hawaiian
Telecom, from disruption to web access to doubled billing
on phone bills."
Labor and political leaders also note that a sale would be
a technological step backward for rural America, which is
already struggling to keep up with urban areas in access to
high-speed Internet service.
"The possible sale of Verizon's access lines throughout
Vermont raises serious questions about Verizon's commitment to
bridging the digital divide found primarily in rural America —
and so evident in the mostly rural areas of our state," the
Vermont politicians said in their letter to the company.
"High-speed Internet access is essential to the economic
growth of rural Vermont, and is integral to our state's plan
to build healthy Vermont businesses for the new century."
Members of the St. Louis Newspaper Guild, CWA Local
36047, rallied outside the Post-Dispatch newspaper to protest
the unfair suspension of a prize-winning reporter.
Carolyn Tuft, with 14 years at the paper, was wrongly
disciplined for a story she wrote in April 2005 about the
Joyce Meyer Ministries. Her case was heard by an arbitrator
this week, but a decision may take several months.
After Tuft's story appeared in April 2005, two
Post-Dispatch editors — one of whom has left the newspaper —
published an unprecedented apology. This apology clarified
matters that did not need clarifying and corrected information
that was not in error, the local said.
The local also pointed out that management's actions
violated contract provisions concerning disciplinary
procedures and were unfairly and wrongly applied to Tuft. Tuft
was the only person singled out for any discipline.
"I want them to correct the record. I was never unfair or
unprofessional. I want my career and credibility back," she
said in an interview with Editor and Publisher.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch employees are rallying behind Tuft
because they know that if management's over-the-top response
is allowed to stand, all employees will be at risk for
excessive penalties, the local said. Also speaking at the
rally were local president Jeff Gordon and Ed Bishop, editor
of the St. Louis Journalism Review.
Never let it be said that bankrupt Northwest Airlines
doesn't care about its workers: Along with deep wage cuts and
layoffs, it offered its beleaguered employees a handy little
guidebook filled with 101 ways to save money — including
dumpster diving.
Tip number 46 reads, "Don't be shy about pulling something
you like out of the trash."
The booklet was included in a layoff packet given to dozens
of workers, but was quickly pulled from the packets when
workers expressed outrage, according to the popular website
http://thesmokinggun.com/
which posted the booklet online.
Other suggested ways to pinch pennies included renting out
a room, shopping in thrift stores, taking fewer showers, using
old newspapers for cat litter and searching the Internet for
freebies.
"There's no way we could make this up," flight attendant
union leaders at Northwest said on their AFA-CWA webpage. "The
rocket scientists in the executive suite actually sent these
'helpful hints' to Northwest flight attendants after picking
our pocket for $195 million."
Under a contract imposed by Northwest in July, the 9,200
flight attendants represented by AFA-CWA have seen their
starting pay shrink to $16,000, with the most senior employees
earning just $43,000. The flight attendants have
threatened to strike unless the airline agrees to negotiate a
new contract.
- After twice vetoing increases in California's
minimum wage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looked at the
calendar, saw it was an election year and agreed to raise
the state's minimum wage to $8 an hour by
2008.
"It's been a long time coming, and
frankly the reason it's coming is because this is a
political year," said District 9 Vice President Tony
Bixler.
In reaching a compromise with the
Democratic-controlled legislature, Schwarzenegger agreed to
the two-step raise — 75 cents in 2007 and 50 cents in 2008 —
but refused to allow automatic cost-of-living increases in
future years. His opponent in November, Democratic state
Treasurer Phil Angelides, said that if he's elected he'll
sign any bill indexing minimum wage increases to inflation
so that "working families are not held hostage to politics,"
the Times reported.
- Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander is
already a star in his first season, and with the media
spotlight on him he's making his union dad
— CWA District 2 Organizing Coordinator
Richard Verlander — especially
proud.
"He talks like a kid raised on the
principles of Local 2201, and maybe that's because Justin
Verlander spent countless hours in a stroller on picket
lines," begins a Yahoo Sports feature.
The story
notes that Justin talks about the Major League Baseball
Players Association "in reverential terms instead of asking
why his paycheck gets docked $40 a day for dues." Justin
tells writer Jeff Passan, 'The people before me worked hard
to get what we have now in the system. If you don't take
advantage of that and learn and realize what the previous
guys went through to get where we are now, you can't
appreciate it."
Justin says someday he might like to
have a role in the union. His dad tells Passan, "That would
be the ultimate. We've never really talked about it. But I
can say he would be great at it."
Read the whole
story at
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jppverlander081606&prov=yhoo&type=lgns.
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