April 5, 2007

Largest Non-Union Dow Jones Unit Opts for TNG-CWA

IAPE Local 1096 of The Newspaper Guild-CWA this week notified Dow Jones that it is claiming representation rights on behalf of about 220 newswire employees at the company's Harborside facility in Jersey City, N.J., following a card-signing campaign.

The union, representing more than 1,800 Dow Jones employees in the United States and Canada, reported that a majority in the Harborside unit has signed union authorization cards.  The contract with the employer provides for majority card check recognition.

Local 1096 President Steve Yount said he expects details for certification by a neutral third part to be worked out shortly.

The Harborside operation is the largest remaining non-union editorial unit at Dow Jones, a publishing empire that includes the Wall Street Journal, Barrons Magazine, Dow Jones Newswires and other journals and electronic services.

Yount credited the work of "a strong and enthusiastic internal committee" for the employee's organizing victory after a six-month campaign.  Most of the Harborside employees are reporters and editors for Dow Jones Newswires along with technical, sales and support personnel.

The Harborside employees "realize that they are impacted along with all the rest of us by issues at the bargaining table, and that we need to stand together," Yount said.

In ongoing contract talks at Dow Jones, key issues for the employees center on management demands for "drastic cuts in our health care and prescription drug benefits that would substantially reduce our income," Yount said along with job protections and wage standards.

On Tuesday, members at Dow Jones locations held a "mass coffee break" to mark the end of a 60-day contract extension and discuss an end to voluntary appearances by reporters on CNBC, Wall Street Journal video, webcasts and radio, and insistence on overtime pay for all extra time worked.  "We sent a strong message to the company:  We are unified and we are determined to win a quality contract," said Yount.

Veto of Verizon "Sneak Attack" Upheld in Virginia

A major lobbying push by District 2 and CWA locals in Virginia succeeded in mustering the legislative backing to uphold Gov. Tim Kaine's veto of a bill that would have denied state regulators and citizens a chance to address the impact of a telecom sale or merger.

Earlier, Verizon had quietly pushed the bill through the legislature before CWA and public interest groups were fully aware of the threat.  Having friends like Gov. Kaine to step up and block the anti-consumer bill illustrates the importance of CWA's political program, President Larry Cohen said in announcing the veto at the union's Legislative Conference last week.

"I'm proud of our locals and staff for putting this campaign together on short notice and showing that we can stand up to the corporate lobbyists," said District 2 Vice President Pete Catucci.

Virginia locals had already built up a grassroots campaign to educate the public and urge Kaine to veto the bill, and over the past week they mobilized members to lobby delegates and senators to uphold the veto.  The campaign also included automatic "robo calling" to members and radio ads in Richmond asking citizens to contact lawmakers as well.

The radio spot noted that Verizon has already sold off phone lines in Northern New England and is planning to do the same in other rural areas.  Under the Verizon bill, "There would be no one to question the impact on jobs and service and the rates we pay" if Verizon sold its rural operations.

Verizon pulled out all the stops in its own lobbying effort, but in the end the veto was narrowly upheld in the House of Delegates on April 4.

TNG-CWA to Evaluate ESOP in Tribune Company Sale

President Linda Foley said TNG-CWA will do everything possible on behalf of union-represented workers at the Tribune Company and to look out for the interests of all 20,000 employees as the proposed sale to real estate investor Samuel Zell goes forward.

An employee stock ownership plan to help finance Zell's takeover is a significant part of this deal. An ESOP "can result in a positive partnership that benefits everyone involved or it can be a frustrating experience for worker-investors who end up bearing much of risk while experiencing little positive gain," Foley said. TNG-CWA has substantial experience in this area from work in December 2005, when it hired advisers to help initiate ESOP transactions to protect members working for Knight Ridder newspapers.

The introduction of an ESOP is a mandatory subject for collective bargaining, so union-represented workers at several of the Tribune Company properties – the Baltimore Sun and WPIX-TV in New York, where members are represented by TNG-CWA, and Newsday, where workers are represented by the Teamsters – will be able to evaluate and fully assess the benefits and risks of the ESOP, Foley said.

"TNG-CWA believes that all Tribune Company employees deserve this same opportunity, we are committed to providing that voice.

More information is available at http://www.tribunewatch.org/.

Guild "Freedom Award" Honoree Released from Jail

Online journalist Josh Wolf, who is being honored by The Newspaper Guild-CWA next month for refusing to turn over a protest video to authorities, was released from a federal detention center on Tuesday after spending 7 ½  months behind bars.

Wolf's time in jail set a record for a journalist refusing to comply with a subpoena. The 24-year-old was released after cutting a deal with prosecutors in which he posted the full video on his website and gave a copy to prosecutors in exchange for their promise that he wouldn't be summoned to testify before the grand jury.

The fact that prosecutors dropped their demand that he testify was key to making the deal, Wolf said. "Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement," he said, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists."

"Josh Wolf spent 226 days in jail upholding the principle that journalists should not be investigators for the government," TNG-CWA President Linda Foley. "Now that he's out of jail, we look forward to presenting him with our annual Herbert Block Freedom Award." The award will be presented at the Guild's annual Freedom Fund Award banquet May 3 in Washington, D.C.

Wolf's video shows footage of the 2005 G-8 Summit in San Francisco's Mission District, during which a police officer suffered a fractured skull. He had shown parts of the video on his website but authorities wanted it all, in addition to his testimony.

Speaking to reporters outside the prison, he said he didn't regret the months in jail. "Absolutely, this was worth it. I would do it again if I had to," he said. The Chronicle said Wolf also called for a federal shield law that would protect journalists, including bloggers, from being forced to disclose sources or unpublished material.

Speed Matters:  Local 1103 a Model for Grassroots Activism

Through a combination of old-fashioned workplace discussions and information age communications, Local 1103 in Portchester, N.Y., enlisted 10 percent of its 1,500 members as part of a "Speed Matters Action Committee," or SMAC, in just a couple of months.

That still-growing committee is now preparing to lobby for a bill to allow CWA employers like Verizon to compete on equal footing with the cable companies in rolling out high-speed Internet services in New York.

"1103 and the SMACers are awesome!  It's great to see this level of participation and activism," said President Larry Cohen in a posting on the local's website.  "I am confident that with this kind of leadership we can build awareness and move this issue up on the national priority list."

Local leaders realize that promoting high-speed Internet service means jobs – and members understand, too, when the issues are explained, said Local Business Agent Joe Mayhew.  "We're an Internet economy.  Sooner or later, it's going to be the haves and have nots – who has broadband and who doesn't.  We need to bring high-speed service to everyone across the state, including rural areas.  Without it we're going to lose jobs."

Local 1103 set up an entire area of its website, www.cwa1103.org, complete with blog, to promote SMAC and linked it to CWA's campaign site www.speedmatters.org, where CWA is promoting a broadband speed test and signing up supporters.  "In the first 14 days of SMAC, we found that 44 percent of all the people in District 1 who took the test were out of our local and we ended up being 10 percent of all the tests taken across the country," Mayhew said.  "So we realized that we had something going."

Mayhew and fellow Business Agent Ron Mageri have been traveling around to worksites talking up the program and collecting e-mail addresses as they build an electronic action network and send out regular bulletins.

SMAC activists will be supporting District 1's campaign for legislation to establish a Broadband Development Authority that would increase broadband penetration in underserved areas, and also provide for statewide cable franchising.

Any CWA local can link its website to www.speedmatters.org. Just visit the home page and click on the box headlined, "Promote the Cause."  If additional assistance is required, call Beth Allen at CWA headquarters, (202) 434-9506.

IN BRIEF:

  • Protests by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and its members is being cited as a big reason the FCC announced this week that it is dropping its inquiry into lifting the ban on cell phone use on airplanes during flight.

The FCC received 8,000 comments from the public since it opened the inquiry – mostly against lifting the ban.  A New York Times story this week stated:  "A large number of the letters relied on lines suggested by the (AFA-CWA):  'The introduction of cell phone use in the cabin will not only increase tension among passengers, it will compromise flight attendants' ability to maintain order in an emergency.' "

  • A CWA-backed bill introduced in the U.S. House last week would require call center employees to disclose their physical location when making calls to or receiving calls from consumers. The purpose of the measure is to alert customers that their calls have been directed overseas and to focus attention on the degree to which customer service work is being shifted offshore.

Joining Representative Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), the bill's principal sponsor, at a Pittsburgh news conference to talk about the measure, H.R. 1776, were local union officers from CWA Locals 13550, 13500 and 13000, CWA-represented call center workers and Marge Krueger, administrative assistant to the District 13 vice president.

  • A new AFL-CIO video, "Justice: The Heart of Organizing," is being offered at no charge to union locals in hopes that leaders will show it at meetings, orientations and other events.

The 14-minute video helps make the case for the Employee Free Choice Act by showcasing organizing campaigns, including CWA's fight at Verizon Wireless and success at Cingular. Health care workers, building trade workers, miners and teachers are also featured. Workers describe the struggle of having no union representation and the illegal tactics employers have used to thwart organizing efforts.

To get a free copy of the DVD, e-mail the AFL-CIO union store at store@aflcio.org. Additional copies of the video are $5 each.

  • New economic data show what most Americans already know: The rich keep getting richer and virtually everyone else is losing ground.

According to the Economic Policy Institute’s weekly economic snapshot, all of the gains in income in 2005 went to households in the wealthiest 10 percent, with the richest 1 percent seeing even more growth.

Meanwhile, income of the remaining 90 percent of American households fell by 0.6 percent on average. In the top 10 percent, households gained at least 2.2 percent and as much as 16 percent.

"These trends lead to two clear conclusions," EPI said. "First, the factors driving inequality -- diminished union presence, globalization, surging CEO pay -- are funneling growth to the top of the income scale and dramatically shaping the economic fate of America's working families.  Second, these income trends clearly argue against further regressive tax cuts that continue to favor the wealthiest."