September 1, 2006

Title Review Brings Representation to 500 N.J. Workers

Thanks to the work of local union organizers, more than 500 previously ineligible New Jersey state workers will gain the benefits of CWA representation.

The workers, in 57 job titles across state government previously considered management or confidential, include people like Alice Bebout, a project manager in the state's Office of Information Technology.  Bebout had been a CWA member as a lower-level employee but lost her union eligibility when promoted to project manager four years ago.

"It became a big problem because there was a salary cap on the project managers and other titles that prevented us from keeping pace with supervisors who were in the union," Bebout explained.

The salary cap had been in place several years, but when recently a 10th step was added to the wage progression of represented employees, many of those who supervised them fell behind.

Said Bebout, who worked with Local 1032 on behalf of her colleagues, "Since we will now be in the union, if they figure the compensation level properly, we will no longer be in this situation."

Local 1032 Staff Representative Dudley Burdge — like staff reps in locals across the state — worked with Bebout and nearly 80 employees in her office, explaining to them the benefits of belonging to CWA and helping collect show-of-interest cards. Though representation was not based upon a majority signing cards, Burdge said collecting signed cards both helped to solidify the workers' resolve and influenced the course of negotiations.

A side agreement to the 2003 state workers contract led to a review of all state titles by the New Jersey Office of Employee Relations and CWA. The new title agreement was signed by the state on Aug. 23.

Potentially several hundred additional employees in state colleges could win representation when seven disputed titles are presented to an arbitrator for resolution, reported District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton.

Local officers and organizers who worked on the campaign in addition to Local 1032's Burdge include Adam Liebtag of Local 1034, Executive Vice President Don Klein and Connie English of Local 1040, Rose Silva of Local 1039, John Polk of Local 1031 and Ken McNamara of Local 1037.

Unions Mount Boycott over Toledo Blade Lockout

Newspaper workers represented by CWA and five other unions at the Toledo Blade are winning support from major advertisers, subscribers and politicians as they battle a union-busting publisher that so far has locked out more than 200 production and circulation workers, including 16 typographers represented by Printing Sector Local 63.

The 350 editorial employees represented by the Toledo Newspaper Guild-CWA remain on the job, but they are expecting to be locked out any day as newspaper management attempts to impose demands to abolish all job security and union security protections in the union contracts.

"This isn't about money, it's about breaking our unions," said Larry Vellequette, Guild mobilization coordinator and spokesman for the Toledo Council of Newspaper Unions. "We've already offered millions of dollars in wage and health benefit concessions to help make the newspaper profitable again. But the Blade wants to take away our rights and be able to outsource every job whenever it wants."

The Blade brought in a notoriously anti-union law firm from out of state to handle negotiations and prepared for the lockout last weekend by importing replacement workers and putting them up in area motels.

Already, 65 advertisers have pledged to withhold advertising, and support has grown this week both from advertisers and readers who have dropped subscriptions in response to a new CWA radio and billboard campaign. The workers also got a major boost from the county commissioners who announced that they would stop running paid legal notices in the Blade.

The unions' campaign website is http://www.stoptheblade.com/.

Calif. PUC to Vote on CWA Pole Safety Recommendations

All of CWA's recommendations for safety are included in a judge's pending decision regarding the placement of wireless antennas on California utility poles shared by telephone and electric companies.

Concerned about workers' proximity to the live electric wires, CWA had long sought new safety rules for the poles. Last year, while a revision of rules regarding the electric supply and communications systems was underway, the California Public Utilities Commission began investigating standards for attaching wireless antenna equipment to joint utility poles.

The PUC hired an administrative law judge, who held hearings and collected data. Twelve CWA locals — 9400, 9404, 9410, 9412, 9415, 9417, 9421, 9423, 9431, 9503, 9509 and 9511 — with assistance from District 9 and the union's Safety and Health Department, offered testimony and extensive recommendations.

The judge has submitted his proposed decision, including every CWA recommendation, to the PUC. The commission is scheduled to vote on the issue next week.

Based on CWA's testimony, the judge said there should be a 6-foot vertical clearance between any cellular antenna and power line and safety signs must be prominently displayed no more than 9 feet from the ground, among many other recommendations.

The commission will also consider CWA's recommendation to identify radio frequency radiation emissions and the extent of worker exposure. That issue is part of an agreement negotiated by CWA, IBEW, power, wireless and landline companies, separate from the judge's decision.

IN BRIEF:

  • On the eve of Labor Day, American workers are deeply pessimistic about the economy, outsourcing and the ability of wages to keep pace with inflation, according to new polls conducted by the Pew Research Center and the AFL-CIO.

    "Americans believe that workers in this country are worse off now than a generation ago — toiling longer and harder for less in wages and benefits, for employers who aren't as loyal as they once were, in jobs that aren't as secure, and in a global economy that might very well send their work overseas," the nonpartisan Pew Center reported.

    The Pew telephone survey of 2,003 adults found that most believe workers have less job security and face more stress than workers 20 to 30 years ago. About a third said they have jobs that employers could ship to other countries.

    The AFL-CIO survey of 803 registered voters, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research, found that 55 percent of all voters say their incomes are falling behind the cost of living.

     
  • The number of people living in the United States without health insurance rose to 46.6 million in 2005, a 2.9 percent increase from the previous year, the Census Bureau reported on Aug. 20 — and the total has climbed every year since President Bush took office.

    One in six Americans — 15.9 percent — do not have medical benefits, the government said, up from 15.6 percent in 2004.

    Ken Thorpe of Emory University, deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services from 1993 to 1995 under President Clinton, told Bloomberg News, "We've had absolutely no federal effort or interest in insuring the uninsured since 2000. This has not been a priority of the Bush administration."

     
  • The compensation of the top five executives of leading U.S. companies — the "S&P 1,500" — now equals nearly 10 percent of the corporations' total profits, according to a recent study by researchers at the Harvard Law School and Cornell University.

    The study found that top executive pay had doubled over the previous decade. For 1993-95, pay for the top five executives was 5 percent of earnings;  for 2001-03, the most recent period for which there are figures, the compensation for the top five had jumped to 9.8 percent.

    CBS News.com editor Dick Meyer noted: "Remember, this is only the top five executives. They might not even be the highest paid people in a company; an investment bank may pay a star trader more than one of the top five executives in the food chain whose compensation must be revealed to the SEC by law."

    The paper by Lucian Bebchuck of Harvard and Yaniv Grinstein of Cornell is online at http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/bebchuk/pdfs/Bebchuk-Grinstein.Growth-of-Pay.pdf

     
  • Next time you tune into the popular "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" you can rest assured that you're supporting a union-friendly workplace.

    The Writers Guild of America, East has reached agreement to cover the Comedy Central show's 14 writers. The Emmy-winning writers will see major gains in their compensation, bringing it into line with writers working on other late night comedy-variety shows.

    The writers "have received critical acclaim for years and now they finally have the same protections and advantages their colleagues have on similar shows," said Writers Guild East President Chris Albers. "I would also like to thank Jon Stewart who stood by his writers and insisted they be properly compensated and treated fairly."