March 8, 2007

Majority of Verizon Business Techs in N.Y., N.E. Sign Up for Representation

A prominent group of lawmakers and religious and civic leaders from Massachusetts counted the cards and certified that a clear majority – 57 percent – of the more than 360 former MCI technicians at Verizon Business in New York and New England support union representation.

Meeting with several of the workers in Boston on March 4, the group, including Sen. John Kerry, Reps. Stephen Lynch and John Tierney, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray and other leaders urged Verizon to grant recognition and begin contract negotiations with the techs.

A video from the certification meeting is posted on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULxC44aFBnE.

The workers are seeking representation by CWA in New York and Connecticut and by IBEW in the rest of New England.  Local leaders and members from both unions are working jointly to "Tear Down the Wall" between the union and non-union business units at Verizon.  Verizon Business techs in other states also are organizing for representation.

John Elia, a tech from Boston who was on hand at the certification, stated:  "When we were MCI, we hoped for what could be but never got it.  When we became Verizon Business, we saw how it was and rejected it.  And now, we'll fight for what should be – and because of the support from our union co-workers I'm confident we can get a union and a voice."

"You wouldn't think it would be this complicated to get a voice in the workplace," Rep. Lynch told the workers.  Lynch, who last week joined a bipartisan majority of U.S. House members in passing the Employee Free Choice Act, calling for a system of cardcheck organizing rights, said:  "All the workers are asking for, because you are outgunned by the size of your employer, is to have the opportunity to have a voice in the workplace."

CWA President Larry Cohen stated:  "Verizon Business workers are overwhelmingly demonstrating that they want bargaining rights and a voice on the job just like union members at this company enjoy.  We urge Verizon to step up and give these workers the union recognition they are entitled to."

IBEW President Ed Hill said: "Artificial divisions within a company won't work.  Verizon should give the same opportunities to all its workers – now."

Other political leaders in the Northeast also have written to CEO Ivan Seidenberg urging the company to extend recognition to the workers, including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer of New York and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

CWA and IBEW members earlier joined the Verizon Business techs at mass rallies at Verizon headquarters in New York and Boston and more than 3,000 have signed a statement supporting their non-union co-workers' organizing drive.

AFL-CIO Backs Universal Health Care Built on Success of Medicare

The AFL-CIO adopted a concrete plan to provide comprehensive, universal health care to all Americans, built on the 40-year success of the Medicare program.

Medicare has "guaranteed coverage, made health care more affordable, included a form of shared financial responsibility, and significantly reduced administrative costs compared to those of private plans," the AFL-CIO Executive Council said in a statement.

The AFL-CIO called on congressional leaders to support the updating and expansion of Medicare benefits "to fit the working population and children, as well as negotiating prices with physicians and providers that families and the country can afford."

Under this plan, "employers' responsibility for health care financing would be broadly and equitably shared, substantially reducing burdens on all businesses and reducing disadvantages currently faced in the global marketplace," the statement said. 

There is no question that the current system is broken, with 47 million people uninsured, tens of millions more worrying that they will lose the coverage they have if they change or lose their jobs, and American businesses that provide adequate health care at a significant disadvantage compared to companies that provide little or no coverage, the AFL-CIO pointed out.

CWA has expressed strong support for legislation introduced by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) to extend the benefits of coverage of the Medicare program to all Americans.

In other actions, the AFL-CIO called on President Bush to set a timetable to end U.S. involvement in Iraq. "If the president refuses to act, Congress must use its powers under the Constitution and act," the AFL-CIO said.

The AFL-CIO also outlined a six-month timetable of candidate forums, discussions, online surveys and other ways for workers to evaluate political candidates on issues important to working families for the 2008 election season.

Tentative Pact for 600 at Rochester Frontier

About 600 Local 1170 members working for Frontier Telephone of Rochester, N.Y., will see a 2-percent wage increase and an annual 4.5 percent performance bonus in each of the three years of their new tentative contract settlement – and keep their fully paid health benefits.

District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton said the bargaining committee, led by Upstate New York/New England Director Dave Palmer and local President Linda McGrath, "reached a great agreement in particularly hard times. I think our agreement in Rochester will remain the best we have with that company."

McGrath, reporting the settlement on the morning of March 7, said, "We're very pleased. I think that overall it's a good contract for the membership, and it will help the company beat the competition."

Additional benefits of the pact include job security language covering all but 48 workers hired after Jan. 1, 1999 and an agreement that Frontier will provide a full year's wages plus a lump sum payment into the defined contribution pension plan for any workers surplused between now and Dec. 31, 2008.

Local 1170 agreed to consolidate several job titles and to give Frontier some of the flexibility the company sought.

The pact provides pension and vacation improvements and, McGrath said, performance bonuses are guaranteed for all employees as long as the company meets installation and repair standards established by the public service commission.

Bargaining past expiration of their old contract on Jan. 31, Local 1170 members voted to authorize a strike and wore black t-shirts to work every Thursday as a sign of solidarity. They conducted informational picketing outside the home of Rochester Frontier Senior Vice President Ann Burr and lined the halls of the RIT Conference Center where bargaining took place. A busload of members picketed corporate headquarters in Connecticut.

McGrath said the local would mail out contract explanation materials and conduct a ratification vote at its membership meeting on March. 24.

New Cingular Wireless Contract in Puerto Rico 

Cingular Wireless workers in Puerto Rico, members of Local 3010, ratified a new 4-year contract that improves wages and holidays and establishes a Strategic Alliance Committee to address issues important to the members between bargaining.

The contract covers about 520 customer care, sales and other workers.

The agreement provides for wage increases of 11.7 percent (compounded) over the contract term plus $600 in signing bonuses. It adds two additional floating holidays and increases severance pay from the previous maximum of $1,750 to $12,000.

Improvements in the arbitration process include expedited hearings and provisions calling for cases to be handled in Spanish.

A new Strategic Alliance Committee, a joint committee of management and workers from sales, network and customer care. will take up such issues as training, job slotting, quotas and other concerns.

Angelo Andujar, president of CWA Local 3010, commended the bargaining committee for its hard work in negotiating the agreement and answering members' questions about the settlement.

"This agreement makes real improvements in salaries and other benefits. In addition, the changes in the grievance and arbitration process will go a long way in helping members address their job concerns," he said.

The bargaining committee members were Javier Torres and Heriberto Lopez, Local 3010 stewards; Betty Witte, administrative assistant to CWA District 3 Vice President Noah Savant; Jorge Rodriguez, District 3 staff representative, Puerto Rico; Karen Murphy, District 3 staff representative and Angelo Andujar, CWA Local 3010 president.

Hundreds Rally to Block Verizon Landline Sale

A sea of red shirts and chants of "Hey, hey, ho, ho, FairPoint has got to go" filled Monument Square in downtown Portland, Me., on March 3, as more than 1,200 CWA and IBEW members shouted out their opposition to Verizon's proposed sale of 1.6 million landlines in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. FairPoint Communications has proposed to buy Verizon's lines for $2.7 billion.

Said CWA Local 1400 Vice President Anne Mussenden, one of the rally organizers, "It was fabulous to see our union brothers and sisters from every New England state who came to support us. I haven't seen people so riled up since the NYNEX strike of '89."

"It was a large, angry, boisterous crowd," said CWA Representative Paul Bouchard, who told those assembled that, "The sale is a scheme. It's an attempt for Verizon to walk out on their obligations to rural subscribers. FairPoint's a Mayberry phone company; they're coming in here with huge debt and no resources to serve the subscribers."

Mussenden pointed out that those customers are already underserved as far as high-speed data transmission: The best Verizon offers currently is DSL at 3.0 megabits and in some areas only 768 kilobits, and they're not building FIOS in rural areas.

FairPoint has become sufficiently riled by the unions' opposition that it filed a legal memo with the Maine Public Utilities Commission on March 1, seeking to limit the unions' intervention testimony to only labor and employment issues. CWA has consistently opposed the sale on grounds that rural communities in the three states would be underserved.

"FairPoint's trying to muzzle us," Mussenden said. "Our whole fight is about the promises they're making to the public, and they're bringing nothing to Maine."


 IN BRIEF:

  • About 130 activists from CWA's Public, Healthcare and Education Workers Sector conference, March 6-8 in Jackson, Miss., joined in a rally at the state capitol on March 6 to support MASE-CWA Local 3570's demands that the state hire more social workers and nurses, raise the pay of state workers and establish a state minimum wage.

      "The theme of our conference is fighting attacks on public service," said Brooks Sunkett, CWA sector vice president. "Nationally, all kinds of programs are being cut, state benefits are being cut, and jobs are being privatized. We have to get involved politically, we have to get organized and educate our membership. We have to develop strategic campaigns."


  • It's getting to be a tired cliché in covering the Bush White House but once again the administration has nominated a fox to guard the henhouse – in this case, a leader of the extreme anti-union, anti-consumer National Association of Manufacturers as chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. 

    Michael Baroody, most recently executive vice president of NAM and, in the 1980s, President Reagan's assistant secretary of labor, has a long history of working for Republican and business interests. According to media reports, his track record includes delays in issuing worker safety rules, fighting the ergonomics standard and criticizing federal EPA policies limiting smog and soot.

    "Here was a golden opportunity to put a true champion of consumers onto a very important commission, and instead President Bush selected someone who represents the special interests," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a member of the Commerce Committee that will hold hearings on Baroody's nomination.


  • Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates thinks expanding the H-1B visa program to admit 300,000 temporary workers a year would be "a fantastic improvement" over the current annual limit of 65,000.

    In testimony to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee, Gates said the massive expansion was necessary to make America more competitive in the global economy.

    But in a written statement to the committee, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson said Gates' plan would make today's bad situation for IT and professional workers far worse. "The H-1B program has become the preferred mechanism for employers in professional and technical sectors to keep labor standards from rising," she wrote.