April 7, 2006

CWA: Lucent-Alcatel Deal Raises Concerns

CWA will meet shortly with Lucent Technologies Inc. officials to discuss employment, the current contract, issues affecting active and retired workers and other concerns about the proposed merger of Lucent with the France-based Alcatel, said Ralph Maly, CWA vice president for Communications and Technologies.

CWA represents about 2,700 Lucent workers; the current contract remains in effect until 2012.

CWA will look for answers about continued U.S. employment, pensions, and health care for both active and retired workers, Maly said. He noted that if the sale goes forward, the United States will no longer have a flagship telecom equipment maker.

"Bell Labs, a part of Lucent, has been responsible for the development of most of the technology used around the world, in addition to applications used in defense and other sensitive work," Maly said. "We are looking for assurances not only on employment and benefit issues, but on workers' rights," he added. 

Alcatel is seeking to acquire Lucent for $13.4 billion. The deal must be approved by shareholders of both companies, regulators in the United States and Europe, the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the U.S. Justice Department.

CWA Campaigns Forestall AT&T Shutdowns

CWAers in Pennsylvania, working with allies throughout the labor movement, put together a successful political/community action campaign to forestall the closing of two AT&T call centers employing 260 workers.

Subsequently, AT&T announced today that it would keep the Fairhaven, Mass., center open an additional 60 days, and CWA is continuing to fight for a similar extension at the Mesa, Ariz., center, said Ralph Maly, CWA vice president for Communications and Technologies.

CWA Local 13500 President Sandy Kmetyk said "hard work by so many people" won an agreement by AT&T to keep 45 jobs at the New Castle, Pa., location, where IBEW members provide help for hearing- and speech-impaired customers, and won a reprieve for another 225 members of her local at the Pittsburgh call center.

AT&T originally announced in February that it would close the Pittsburgh operations on April 21. "We got the actual transcripts of the public utility commission hearing where AT&T said that Pennsylvania would not lose jobs as a result of the merger with SBC. Then, we started to mobilize," Kmetyk said.

After CWA elevated the issue, the PUC announced that it would investigate whether the layoffs would hurt quality service. CWA members and officers began contacting elected officials from Governor Ed Rendell to Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor and many others in their fight to keep hometown jobs.

Rendell, who also had received assurances from AT&T that there would be no loss of jobs in the state, urged the company to reconsider its decision, Kmetyk said. AT&T agreed to keep the center open, at least for the near future. Rendell has also pledged additional job retraining funds for the "jobs of the future," she added. 

Kmetyk stressed that the victory was a team effort and credited IUE-CWAer Jack Shea, who heads the Allegheny County Labor Council, District 13 Vice President Jim Short and Marge Krueger, Short's administrative assistant, for their help.

Meanwhile, in Arizona and Massachusetts, CWAers also are mounting public campaigns to keep their AT&T call center jobs in the face of announced closings. Working with CWA Vice Presidents Annie Hill, District 7, and Chris Shelton, District 1, members are working to build support for their hometown jobs.

In Mesa, Ariz., members of CWA Local 7050 are contacting state elected officials and regulators to build support for keeping the 57 call center jobs. Working with other CWA locals and the state AFL-CIO, the local has brought CWA's concerns about the closing to Gov. Janet Napolitano and the state corporation commission - which regulates state utilities, said local president David Blackburn.

In Fairhaven, Mass., Local 1051 President Linda Teoli said CWA members had pressed elected officials, urging them to support the local's effort to keep the call center open. U.S. Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, along with five members of the Massachusetts delegation, contacted AT&T chief executive officer Ed Whitacre, urging AT&T to keep the center open.

NABET-CWA Mobilizing for Fair Contract at NBC Universal

NABET-CWA members who work at NBC Universal are stepping up their campaign to win a fair contract. The contract covering about 2,500 engineers, news writers and other workers at the network and at four of its owned and operated stations expired March 31 and talks to date "have not addressed members' serious concerns," said NABET-CWA President John S. Clark.

Clark said unit members are very concerned about management's demands that it be able to assign more work to a wide range of people, both in and outside the bargaining unit. "One proposal basically would enable management to assign digital camera work to a broad array of non-unit people, endangering the futures of many workers. That's just not acceptable," he said.

Other key issues for NABET-CWA members include a demand for cuts in night shift pay, changes in the structure of the workday, an insufficient wage offer and provisions affecting daily hire employees.

"So far, despite our meetings over the past several months, management hasn't made any real effort to seriously respond to workers' concerns over many of these issues," Clark said. "Our members are stepping up their mobilization actions and building support for their fight." 

The agreement covers members of Locals 51011, New York; 54041, Chicago; 59053, Burbank, Calif.; and 52031, Washington, D.C.

Ownership Deception Prompts Charges by York Guild

Having to play a guessing game of "Who's the Publisher" has complicated bargaining for The Newspaper Guild-CWA in York, Pa. The Guild local there has filed unfair labor practice charges over bad-faith bargaining as well as misrepresentations about who actually owns the town's three newspapers.

MediaNews Group had claimed that as part of a newspaper swap in 2004, Buckner News Alliance now owned the York Dispatch. However, the local obtained proof recently that no such trade had occurred and that MediaNews, in fact, has a monopoly in York. It continues to own the Dispatch and the Sunday News and bought the York Daily Record from Buckner.

TNG-CWA Local 38218 represents 80 workers at the three papers. In the complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, leaders said they'd made decisions about how best to represent members based on letters from both employers announcing the phony swap.

The Guild contract at the York Daily Record expired last September and the contract at the York Dispatch expires this October. Further scrambling the bargaining scenario, the Dispatch contract covers workers at the Sunday News, but that paper now has been incorporated with the York Daily Record.

In another ULP charge, Guild leaders say Daily Record management — which has hired a notorious union-busting law firm — has refused to bargain in good faith. The charge includes evidence that managers have harassed the local Guild president and refused to give unpaid time for members of the bargaining committee to attend negotiations.

Through rallies, billboard ads, radio spots and other activities, the Guild has built enormous public support in York. But the paper has refused to publish letters to the editor from readers questioning management's actions, and it even shut down a message board on its website when postings appeared by citizens upset about the workers' treatment.

IN BRIEF:

  • IUE-CWA is continuing talks with auto parts maker Delphi Corp., supported by harsh criticism by House Democrats of the company's request on March 31 for the bankruptcy court to void its union contracts. No action on that request is expected for at least several weeks.

    Rep. George Miller (D-CA) joined other House Democrats to send a letter to Delphi CEO Steve Miller. Miller, the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, issued the following statement on the day of the request:

    "From steel to airlines to autos, too many companies in too many industries are turning to bankruptcy court in order to break their promises to their workers and slash wages and benefits. Delphi's decision ... to apparently continue this trend is deeply regrettable. Delphi should bargain in good faith with its workers. The men and women who have dedicated their careers to the company deserve to be treated fairly."

    Miller held an online e-hearing late last year to allow Delphi and General Motors workers to testify about how the crisis in the U.S. auto industry was affecting their livelihoods.

    In addition to Miller, Reps. Sherrod Brown, Marcy Kaptur, Ted Strickland and Tim Ryan (Ohio); John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell and Dale Kildee (Mich.); Brian Higgins (N.Y.), Rush Holt (N.J.), Michael Michaud (Me.), Major Owens (N.Y.), and Hilda Solis and Fortney Pete Stark (Calif.) signed the letter.

     
  • The top 25 pension packages lavished on American CEOs in 2005 are revealed on an updated version of the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch website. The site also includes new salary figures for the pampered chief executives.

    The database shows that the average compensation for CEOs of the top 500 companies last year was $11.75 million, more than 430 times the average worker.

    The site illustrates how companies, while replacing workers' defined benefit plans with riskier 401(k)s, are giving their CEOs "supplemental executive retirement pensions," also called  "top hat" plans that guarantee a pension benefit.

    "From what we see corporate America doing for its CEOs, we know they can afford to do right by their employees," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka said.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing that companies be required to provide far greater detail about their executives' pay packages, including retirement benefits. The SEC will only be taking comments through Monday, April 10, but visitors to the PayWatch website this weekend — http://www.paywatch.org/ — can beat the deadline by sending an e-mail directly from the site.

     
  • In the Bush administration's world of fuzzy facts, new Census Bureau "alternative poverty measures" are likely understating the pervasiveness of poverty among American families, according to a new report by two groups of economists.

    The report, by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says the new system fails to take into account such expenses as childcare and medical costs. It also treats home ownership as a source of income for poor families, against the advice of economic experts.

    "The Census Bureau is saying that the poverty rate goes down if you use a more complete measure of economic well-being, but that's largely because they use comparisons that one of their own past reports suggests are flawed," said researcher Arloc Sherman of the CBPP. "The mystery is why they've stopped publicizing an even more complete set of poverty measures, guided by the National Academy of Sciences, that generally show that poverty rates are higher, not lower, than the official yardstick shows."

    Read the full report at http://www.epinet.org/.