June 16, 2006

IUE-CWA Auto Conference Board Elects New Chairman

Delegates to the IUE-CWA Automotive Conference Board on June 15 unanimously elected Willie Thorpe as chairman to succeed Henry Reichard, who died last Monday of a heart condition. Reichard had been under intense pressure negotiating on behalf of IUE-CWA members affected by the bankruptcy of automotive parts manufacturer Delphi Corp.

"I am honored that the conference board leadership has turned to me in these difficult times," said Thorpe, who had been serving as director of IUE-CWA Region 7. He began his career at General Motors in 1968 as a member of Local 801, and went on to serve three terms as president. 

Thorpe had been working closely with Reichard since Delphi declared bankruptcy last October and was involved in all stages of the negotiations. Prior to being selected to oversee the 13 states and 96 locals in Region 7 last May, Thorpe has served eight years as benefits director on the conference board, where he led the benefits talks during national negotiations in 1999 and 2003 with GM and Delphi.

"Willie Thorpe is a man who gets the job done," said IUE-CWA President Jim Clark. "I am confident his knowledge of conference board history and our contracts will prove crucial to assist the local leadership during the most precarious times they and their membership have faced."

Following the election, the delegates were set to begin talks in Troy, Mich., on an attrition plan the company had given the union last week.

CWAers Participate in 'Take Back America'

CWA Executive Vice President Jeff Rechenbach and Local 2204 member Teresa Joyce, a Cingular service rep from southwestern Virginia, appeared at a workshop called Take Back the Workplace, as part of this week's Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C. The workshop was chaired by David Bonior, chair of American Rights at Work.

They described how Cingular's agreement to remain neutral in organizing drives and grant recognition based on majority card check support has allowed 39,000 workers to gain CWA representation — 17,000 in just the past year.

Joyce and her co-workers originally tried to organize when her call center was owned by AT&T Wireless, and she described how bosses conducted one-on-one meetings to intimidate them, and how several union supporters were even fired.

When Cingular bought AT&T Wireless last year, "I was on the conference call with Cingular's CEO when he talked about the great relationship the company had with CWA," she told the conferees. "I wanted to shout out loud for all the managers to hear."

Now part of CWA, her workplace is entirely different, she said. Workers have a say on the job and better pay and good health benefits at a lower cost.

The annual Take Back America conference brings thousands of progressive activists and political leaders together to discuss ideas and develop a common agenda. For more information and to view streaming video of major speeches at the conference, go to http://www.ourfuture.org the website of the Campaign for America's future.

Membership Grows in Diverse Units

Creative outreach by CWA organizers has resulted in 275 new members in a variety of bargaining units.

  • By a vote of 83 to 4, the 140 member Professional Staff Association at the Boston Public Library decided on June 7 to affiliate with CWA, after a year-long selection process that originally involved four other AFL-CIO or Change to Win unions. PSA President John Devine, former presidents Rich Campagna and Serena Enger and the PSA executive board led the affiliation drive. They were assisted by District 1 Organizing Coordinator Erin Bowie, Steve Early, administrative assistant to district Vice President Chris Shelton, and Joe Montagna, business agent for Local 1300. Jennifer Doe from Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, and Susan Muntz, a librarian and Local 1031 steward, also worked on the campaign.

     
  • IUE-CWA Region 8 gained 71 new members on June 13, with verification that a majority of the unit at Meridian Automotive in Fowlerville, Mich., signed representation cards. Local 84768 Organizing Coordinator Cheryl Baker coordinated the campaign, with assistance from Local 84400 President Chris Grogan and WAGE Organizer Julie Riger. IUE-CWA Staff Representative Dennis Allen used the good working relationship developed with the company to assist the campaign. IUE-CWA represents 1,500 workers at other Meridian plants in Region 8. Its goal is to add 1,000 workers at the Fowlerville location by 2008.

     
  • Workers in the Paducah, Ky., offices of DirecTECH SW voted 35-19 for CWA representation in a National Labor Relations Board election on June 1. The company provides satellite TV installation and repair for DirectTV. Local 6320 organizers Sonja Gholsten-Byrd and Dave Hoyt and local President Kevin Kujawa met with the workers and helped them overcome a campaign of lies and misinformation orchestrated by the union-busting law firm Jackson/Lewis. CWA supporters from throughout the area served by DirecTECH — southern Missouri, southern Illinois and western Kentucky — kept their own groups informed and made house calls to the six customer service representatives and 58 installers in the unit. Local 6310 organizer Shawn Bland and District 3 Organizing Coordinator Tom Newport also assisted.

Labor Leaders Blast Scheme to Cut New Jersey State Workers' Pay, Benefits

From CWA, AFT and AFSCME locals to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, union leaders are furious with three New Jersey lawmakers, all Democrats, who want to slash state workers' pay and benefits by 15 percent rather than support the governor's plan for a modest sales tax hike to fix the state's fiscal problems.

"These proposals are patently unfair and would completely undermine the collective bargaining process," Sweeney said in a letter to New Jersey's speaker of the house and president of the senate, asking them to take a "firm and unambiguous public stand against the proposals and to refute immediately the contemptible attempts to smear government employees."

The state has been in financial trouble since Republican Gov. Christine Whitman's tax cuts in the 1990s, and the pay and benefits of state employees have been an easy, and perennial, target. Current Gov. Jon Corzine has put forth a 2007 budget with more than $300 million in cuts in social programs and higher education, and is proposing to raise the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent in order to balance the budget without further cuts.

Corzine opposes the lawmakers' scheme to roll back union workers' pay and benefits. "The budget is not the time or place for contract negotiations. The governor inherited a contract and intends to honor it," his spokesman, Anthony Coley, told reporters. "Contracts are legally binding documents and budget negotiations are not contract negotiations."

CWA, the largest state worker union in New Jersey, is running radio ads supporting Corzine's budget plan and is pointing out that state workers have already made health care and wage concessions that have saved the state $480 million.

CWA Mourns Joseph Murphy, Retired Assistant to VP

Joseph E. Murphy, 80, a retired assistant to the vice president of the former CWA District 8, died May 19, following a brief bout with cancer.

Harvey Hoffman, a retired CWA representative who knew him, said Murphy is fondly remembered as a mentor to countless stewards at Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph in Colorado and Wyoming.

Murphy joined CWA when he went to work for Mountain Bell in Santa Fe after a stint in the Navy during World War II. He served on the union's statewide grievance committee in 1950 and 1951 and worked briefly as a full-time organizer for the union's Arizona-New Mexico District before joining the staff there as a CWA representative.

From 1955, he served in a variety of staff positions in the Denver office until, in 1971, he was promoted to administrative assistant by John Carroll, vice president of District 8, now part of District 7. The following year he was named assistant by district Vice President Edmond Bishop and served in that position until 1977. The final three years of his career were spent as a CWA representative in the Englewood, Colo., office.

He is survived by two nephews, Dennis and Lester Patty of Santa Fe, and a niece, Carolyn Lexa of Kemah, Texas.

IN BRIEF:

  • AFA-CWA blasted Mesaba Airlines for attempting to "circumvent negotiations" by filing in bankruptcy court for the second time in six months to abrogate the flight attendants' contract.

    Tim Evenson, the union's Master Executive Council president, noted that the judge denied the previous attempt to scrap the contract just two months ago. "We don't think it's good faith bargaining when management presents its first proposal at the same time they tell us they're running back to bankruptcy court," he said.

    Flight attendants have threatened to strike if the court abrogates the contract, and earlier this week they participated in a practice CHAOS drill in Detroit, Minneapolis and Memphis. AFA-CWA represents 440 members at Mesaba, a regional carrier owned by Northwest Airlines.

     
  • The so-called recovery of the Information Technology sector has been a jobless one for most IT workers, despite industry claims to the contrary, a new study by the University of Illinois' Center for Urban Economic Development found.

    The report, released by CWA Local 37083, WashTech, examined the state of the IT industry through February 2006, with a focus on eight key IT cities. The analysis, "Information Technology Labor Markets: Recovering But Slowly," is a follow-up to a report produced by WashTech and the Center in September 2004. (Read the news release and full study at http://www.cwa-union.org.)

    "Technology job growth is weak at best in most major markets across the country," said WashTech/CWA president Marcus Courtney. "Tens of thousands of highly-skilled American IT workers remain unemployed or under-employed, while at the same time, more and more technology jobs are being shipped out of the country."

     
  • Unions representing broadcast and print journalists and media workers in the United States and Canada joined the International Federation of Journalists to mark Iraqi National Press Day, June 15, and to call on all governments involved in Iraq to work to eradicate the atmosphere of danger and peril that surrounds journalists there, regardless of nationality.

    "Journalists and media workers in Iraq are putting their lives and their well-being on the line every day to safeguard a critical element of our democracy — a free and independent media," said Linda Foley, president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA. "We call for enhanced security and protection for media personnel and their organizations, and urge all groups to reject the indiscriminate and targeted attacks on journalists and media workers that have resulted in a horrifying number of deaths."

    Arnold Amber, director, TNG Canada, pointed out that the killing of media workers in Iraq has surpassed every other modern conflict, with no fewer than 129 reporters, broadcasters and media staff killed since 2003, 100 of whom are Iraqi colleagues. "This senseless toll is simply beyond reckoning. These killings must stop, and that means there must be an end to this war," he said.