| April
28, 2006
CWA will begin contract negotiations with Avaya on May 1
for a new agreement covering 2,900 workers. The current
contract expires May 27; negotiations will be held in
Washington, D.C.
Larger locations include customer service workers in
Atlanta, Oklahoma City and the Denver area, and other Avaya
workers in Anaheim, Calif., Dallas and Houston, Tex., Columbus
and Cleveland, Ohio, and the New York City metro area.
Avaya workers adopted bargaining goals at the
Communications and Technologies leadership conference earlier
this year, citing employment security, including "jobs with a
future" and an end to outsourcing of work, as a key objective.
CWA Vice President Ralph Maly for communications and
technologies expressed concern that the good relationship that
CWA and Avaya had built from the earliest days of the company
has all but disappeared.
He listed job cuts, Avaya's outsourcing of work and the
ability of Avaya's business partners to manipulate customers
who prefer to use Avaya services and maintenance as examples
of the company's flawed business strategy.
"CWA wants that good working relationship to be restored.
We want Avaya to be a successful business and our members, of
course, have a huge interest in continuing Avaya's success.
Our members deserve to be full partners in the business that
they helped create. They don't deserve to be marginalized or
their livelihoods eliminated by mismanagement," he said.
CWA made a case for responsible corporate governance at
IBM, General Electric and AT&T
this week, at the first of several shareholder actions on the
calendar this spring.
"Because our members own stock in many of these companies,
we once a year have the opportunity to air our views on how
they should be run," said CWA President Larry Cohen. "We build
a broad base of support among these corporations' owners when
we oppose excessive CEO pay and corporate boards run amok, and
we strengthen our position for bargaining."
Representatives of the Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701 on April
26 turned out at the company's annual meeting in Tulsa,
Okla., to support a resolution calling for simple majority
rule on all matters requiring shareholder approval rather than
the supermajority previously required. The measure passed with
61.5 percent of votes cast.
Also at the meeting, Janet Krueger, an Alliance@IBM member
and former IBM worker, submitted a resolution calling for
clearer, "plain English" disclosure of executive compensation,
which includes restricted stock, stock options and long-term
incentive plans. That resolution received more than 40 percent
of shares voted. Jim Askew, another Local 1701 member, took
CEO Sam Palmisano to task at the meeting on changes to the
company's 401(k) plan between 1991 and 1995 that will cause
older workers to retire with 40 to 50 percent less than
they previously could have expected.
On the same day, IUE-CWA members leafleted
outside General Electric's shareholder meeting in Philadelphia
and, as part of the Coordinated Bargaining Committee of GE
unions, supported shareholder resolutions demanding that
directors be elected by majority vote and that its board
include a union retiree. The majority vote proposal drew 18
percent of shares voted. The proposal for a retiree board
member received 4.3 percent.
CWA Communications and Technologies Vice President
Ralph Maly spoke at the AT&T annual meeting in San Antonio
on April 28, making a direct appeal to "new AT&T" CEO Ed
Whitacre to enforce commitments made to "old AT&T" members
through collective bargaining. CWA and Whitacre have
enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect as evidenced by good
contracts as SBC, honored with integrity by both parties, he
noted. Maly pointed out that following the merger of SBC and
the old AT&T, CWA members enthusiastically ratified a new
collective bargaining agreement, yet 600 have been laid off
because the new company has not enforced the job security
language regarding the old AT&T part of the
business.
District 6 Retired Members Chapter President Bobby Brown
challenged the board for approving the billions in funding
necessary to achieve a series of mergers and acquisitions over
several years while refusing to increase pension payments to
retirees and implementing increases in copays for health care
and prescription drugs.
Preparing for additional shareholder meetings later in the
spring, CWA has submitted its own resolution for the Verizon
meeting scheduled for May 4 in Overland Park, Kan. Opposing
interlocking directorships, the proposal would prevent
directors from sitting on the boards of other directors'
companies. For example, as in at least one case, the union
sees a clear conflict of interest in Verizon directors — who
must vote on huge health care expenditures — also sitting on
the boards of pharmaceutical companies.
CWA leaders from Texas to New England have been hard at
work collecting proxies from members and retirees and
organizing leafleting in support of the Verizon proposal.
District 6 members in red shirts and other unionists from the
San Antonio Central Labor Council will pass out handbills
outside the meeting comparing "Ivan the Terribly Greedy,"
referring to CEO Ivan Seidenberg, to 16th century Russian
conqueror Ivan the Terrible. Their flier condemns Seidenberg
for "outrageous corporate greed, destruction of shareholder
value threatening employees' futures and undermining Verizon's
long-term interests."
It points out that in 2005 Verizon stock fell by 26 percent
and earnings by 5.5 percent, the company froze management's
pension plan, and major credit agencies downgraded the
company's debt. Meanwhile Seidenberg was rewarded with a 48%
pay hike and $15 million toward his retirement.
Other demonstrations of support are being organized by
District 1 at Verizon locations in New York and Boston.
In a challenge to Comcast, CWA, IBEW and religious
activists are planning a prayer vigil in Philadelphia on May
17, the night before the Comcast shareholder meeting. While
drawing attention to Comcast's unionbusting, CWA members at
the meeting will support a resolution calling for each share
of stock to be of equal weight in voting. Currently CEO
Brian Roberts and his family own about 2 percent of Comcast's
stock, but their shares are designated a special class, worth
33 percent in voting, virtually ensuring their complete
control of the company.
TNG-CWA is calling for close scrutiny of the proposed sale
of four former Knight Ridder newspapers by McClatchy Co. to
MediaNews and Hearst Corp., because of the complexity of the
sale and the possible antitrust violations already committed
by MediaNews at its Pennsylvania operations.
The four newspapers — the San Jose Mercury News, Monterey
Herald and Contra Costa Times, all in California, and the St.
Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota — are part of a group of 12
that McClatchy is selling. The Yucaipa Companies, a
worker-friendly equity investment firm, bid for all 12
properties with the support of TNG-CWA, which represents
workers at eight of the newspapers.
TNG-CWA President Linda Foley said the deal was extremely
complicated and demonstrated that the newspaper industry is
dominated by a small circle of ownership groups that, after
the sale announcement, has become even smaller.
TNG-CWA has called on the U.S. Department of Justice as
well as Attorneys General in the affected states to assess the
antitrust implications of the proposal.
TNG-CWA, the York/Adams County (Pa.) AFL-CIO and York, Pa.,
City Council President Cameron Texter have petitioned the U.S.
Attorney General to revoke the antitrust immunity that allowed
for the joint operation of the York newspapers, charging that
MediaNews has hidden the fact that it is the sole owner and
publisher of the city's two newspapers.
Henry J. Holcomb, president of TNG-CWA's Knight Ridder
Council, said "it is troubling that business enterprises that
have a financial interest in limiting competition are working
with self-imposed secrecy to craft a complex deal that appears
to be designed to evade official scrutiny. Businesses that
have a sacred public trust to protect the American way of life
are showing too little concern for their credibility with the
public, and the public should demand more respect."
- After more than two years of intense
negotiations and member mobilization, AFA-CWA members at
Alaska Airlines ratified a new 4-year agreement calling for
pay raises retroactive for 18 months and an enhanced profit
sharing plan along with other gains.
The
2,500 flight attendants also won strong protections against
outsourcing, medical premium caps and the shortest duty day
in the industry, reported Veda Shook, president of the
Alaska Airlines Master Executive Council. She spotlighted
the profit sharing agreement, noting "as front line
employees we will now be able to share in the wealth that we
help create for our airline."
- CWA's Disaster Relief
Fund — built by donations from members
—
has spent just shy of $1.5 million helping 1,253 members and
retirees affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma last
year.
Janine Brown, outgoing
CWA representative for women's activities and community
services, thanked members and locals for the contributions
and for help coordinating the aid process. "We really did
terrific work helping our members," Brown said.
Brown
is headed to a position as labor liaison with United Way of
Metro Atlanta. CWA Director of Human Rights Gwend Johnson
will handle any outstanding claims for hurricane damage.
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