February 22, 2007

Bargaining Process Triumphs over Political Intimidation
With New Jersey State Worker Tentative Agreement

Negotiating against a threat by state lawmakers to impose extreme concessions, CWA state workers in New Jersey reached a tentative contract settlement with Gov. Jon Corzine that "clearly demonstrates the value of the collective bargaining process," District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton stated.

The agreement, covering 40,000 workers and subject to member ratification, provides a 13 percent wage increase over four years — the first state worker pact in 15 years that doesn't call for a wage freeze.

Even after some increased benefit deductions, the settlement will deliver a compounded increase in real wages of 12 percent, Shelton noted. Recognizing massive shortfalls in state pension funding and rising health care costs, CWA also agreed to a .5 percent increase in the workers' pre-tax pension contribution and a 1.5 percent pre-tax contribution to health care costs.

At the same time, the tentative settlement improves the health care system by providing for an expanded PPO network, eliminating restrictions on use of specialists and guaranteeing no changes in benefits over the contract term.

While the age for full retirement was raised from 55 to 60 for new employees, the penalty for early retirement was reduced from 3 percent to 1 percent per year for those five years. 

Reacting to a public clamor over high property taxes, state legislative leaders earlier proposed a bill that would have drastically increased benefit costs, removed future workers from the pension system entirely, and would have imposed many other concessions in hours worked, reduced leave time and other cutbacks. 

Gov. Corzine joined thousands of CWA and other union members who protested the legislative scheme last year, calling for letting the collective bargaining process work. Lawmakers grudgingly withdrew the bill, but kept a drumbeat of pressure on Corzine to press for concessions.

"After 18 months of finger-pointing and scapegoating, this contract represents a real victory for state workers," said Shelton. "We bargained in the most difficult environment we've faced since (Christie) Whitman was governor, at a time when private sector pensions and health care are virtually collapsing."

Capitol Hill Forum and Events Nationwide
Boost Employee Free Choice Act

The Employee Free Choice Act is the best, first step to reinvigorate the U.S. labor movement and rebuild the now-diminished American Dream for millions of working families, speakers at a Capitol Hill forum sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute said Thursday.

"When people talk about 'good jobs' they act as if they came down from the sky," said Beth Shulman, author of "The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans and Their Families. "They weren't always good jobs. They became that way because of unionization."

Yale economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, professors and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and the University of California joined Shulman and EPI staff for the second annual forum, part of EPI's "Agenda for Shared Prosperity."

"A rising tide of inequality threatens the foundations of a system built on fundamental fairness," EPI said. "Millions of families cannot, despite all their work, attain the necessary means for basic self-sufficiency. Meanwhile prospects for the next generation are dimming: In 2000, the average young high school-educated worker started out earning $5,000 less (adjusted for inflation) than those who entered the labor force 30 years ago."

Papers presented by the forum speakers and more information about EPI's ongoing Agenda for Shared Prosperity is available online at www.epinet.org.

The forum fell during a week of media events, lobbying efforts and other activities being staged by CWA and other unions across the country to help lawmakers and all Americans understand the Employee Free Choice Act and why it's so critical.

Interviewed Thursday on the nationally syndicated Ed Schultz radio show, CWA President Larry Cohen explained how grossly today's labor laws favor employers at the expense of workers and America's shrinking middle-class.

"Now it's up to management — whatever they want to deal out," Cohen said. "They want to eliminate pensions, they're gone. They want to eliminate health care. It's gone. They want to outsource your job. It's gone."

After ending the interview, Schultz urged his listeners to pay attention to the bill as it progresses in Congress and said, "This is going to draw the battle lines of who's for the American worker and who isn't."

Death of Verizon Tech Prompts Protest against Job Stress

One week following the on-the-job death of a co-worker, more than 100 Verizon workers and supporters in southern California demonstrated outside the company's Long Beach headquarters on Feb. 19 to protest the company's increased workload.

The workers, members of CWA Local 9586, said that the company's increased daily quota on the number of jobs to be completed by technicians has led to increased stress, forcing some older techs to retire early. "Verizon's increased productivity requirements are brutal and are pushing employees too far," said local president Gregg Gibson.

A week earlier, 30-year employee and fellow union member Gerry De Cou died of a heart attack while completing a job at a customer's home. Gibson said De Cou had complained to management that very morning that he was undergoing tremendous stress because of the increased productivity requirements. He made the same complaint to supervisors two weeks earlier. According to Gibson, the company has been shifting more workers over to FIOS work, placing a greater workload on technicians left to handle copper wire jobs.

"I want to thank all of my brothers and sisters from NABET and other CWA locals — 9000, 9400, 9510, 9573, 9575, 9586, 9587, 9588 — for traveling here from all over southern California to stand tall with us in the rain at 5:30 in the morning," said Gibson. "Together, we showed that we are strong."

Workers were joined in their demonstration by Long Beach city councilwoman Tonya Reyes Uranga who urged Verizon to negotiate with CWA on the issue. "I strongly urge Verizon discuss this labor dispute with CWA."

Kentucky PSC Orders Review of Windstream Job Pledge

Thanks to CWA's intervention in public service commission proceedings, Windstream Communications may face a stay in its efforts to lay off 46 workers in Kentucky. The State PSC has ordered Windstream to respond within 20 days to a complaint filed by CWA, the IBEW and the state's attorney general, stating that the company has violated a no-layoff agreement it made in December 2005.

In December 2005, Alltel Communications set out to shed its wireline properties. The company announced it would purchase wireline provider Valor Communications for $9.1 billion, merge Valor with its own wireline operation and spin off the new wireline entity as Windstream, leaving Alltel as a strictly wireless provider.

CWA, representing 1,200 Alltel employees in eight states, intervened with public service commissions in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Nebraska to protect members' jobs, making certain that the deal was structured so that if the new company, Windstream, failed, creditors could not come after its holdings to repay debt.

In May 2006, the Kentucky PSC approved Alltel's spinoff of Windstream based on the company's assertion that, "There are no plans to change either the number or types of employees currently working (for the company) if the transaction is approved."

CWA, IBEW and the attorney general filed their complaint seeking enforcement of the agreement on Feb. 12, following Winstream's January announcement it would lay off members of CWA Locals 3371 and 3372, and other workers. 

IN BRIEF:

  • A Pennsylvania appeals court has reversed the state's approval of the 2005 Verizon-MCI merger, stating the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission failed to comply with the law by approving the merger without conditions.

    In its Feb. 20 ruling, the court sent the matter back to the state's Public Utility Commission (PUC), directing the body to "either reject the merger or impose conditions that will benefit the public in a substantial way." Said Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini, "We find that there was no evidence that the merger of Verizon and MCI in Pennsylvania would affirmatively promote the service, accommodation, convenience or safety of the public in some substantial way."

    When the merger was before the state for approval earlier, CWA had argued that service quality for consumers and quality jobs for workers should be major points for approving the merger.

  • The laughably self-proclaimed "fair and balanced" news channel was anything but funny this week with an outrageous claim that American teachers' unions are more threatening than terrorists.

    Appearing on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes program, right-wing radio host Neal Boortz claimed that teachers unions are "destroying a generation" and are "much more dangerous than al Qaeda."

    As reported in a transcript on the website, www.thinkprogress.org, Boortz said, "Look, Al Qaeda, they could bring in a nuke into this country and kill 100,000 people with a well-placed nuke somewhere. Ok. We would recover from that. It would be a terrible tragedy, but the teachers unions in this country can destroy a generation." Host Sean Hannity agreed, saying, "They are ruining our school system."