June 28, 2007

Senate Majority Backs Employee Free Choice Act, But GOP Filibuster Blocks Passage – For Now

The U.S. Senate's majority support for the Employee Free Choice Act this week shows what unions can and will accomplish in 2009 after America's working families elect a pro-worker president and gain more seats in Congress, CWA President Larry Cohen said.

"This was a terrific accomplishment. We can all be proud of the role CWA played in getting all 51 votes on the Senate floor, as well as the overwhelming majority we won in the House in March," Cohen said. "Our members, staff and officers went all out, as did other unions, and clearly demonstrated to Congress that a majority of Americans support organizing and bargaining rights. A year ago, no one would have imagined that we could have gotten majority congressional support for this bill in the face of enormous opposition from corporate lobbyists."

"Now we are going to spend the next year and half pouring our energy and passion and outrage into electing a president and new members of Congress who will stand up for American workers and their right to join a union and bargain collectively," he said. "And when we do, the Employee Free Choice Act will become law."

The Senate voted 51-48 for cloture, the process to shut off a filibuster, or "extended debate," by opponents and allow a bill to be voted on.  Senate rules, however, require 60 votes for cloture, meaning a simple majority is not enough to pass legislation. Had it passed, President Bush vowed to veto it.

In urging the Senate to pass the bill, CWA and other union members nationwide generated 50,000 phone calls, 156,000 faxes and e-mail messages, and 220,000 postcards, including 120,000 delivered to the Senate last week alone, according to the AFL-CIO. Last Tuesday, about 4,500 union members including many from CWA turned out for a Capitol Hill rally across from the Senate as lawmakers opened debate on the bill.

A similar campaign helped propel the Employee Free Choice Act through the U.S. House, where it passed 241-185 in March.

Cohen laid out three specific steps that CWA will take to ensure that the bill ultimately passes in both houses of Congress:

  1. Continue to educate union households and the public about the decline of collective bargaining and the need to restore bargaining and organizing rights.

  2. Elect a president in 2008 who will lead the effort to enact this legislation. 

  3. Develop strategies in the Senate that allow for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act with majority support instead of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate. This is the strategy that was used to enact the first increase in the minimum wage in 10 years by including the measure in an appropriations bill.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who sponsored the bill in the Senate, made an impassioned speech on its behalf before the cloture vote Tuesday. Later he admonished GOP members for abandoning working Americans -- with the noted exception of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the only Republican to vote for the bill.

"I am proud that a majority of my colleagues stood up for working families.  I regret that more of my Republican colleagues do not share this vision for a better America," Kennedy said. "Although we were blocked today we will not give up and we will not give in.  I can promise that we will be back. There may be obstacles along the way, but we'll keep up the fight until we get a victory for working families."

Media Takes Note of Unique CWA Internet Speed Survey

CWA's release this week of the first-ever national state-by-state Internet speed survey, showing that actual user speeds for broadband services in the United States are far below speeds in most other developed nations, drew widespread media coverage.

USA Today featured the CWA Speed Matters survey on its front page on Tuesday, headlined, "U.S. Net Access Not All that Speedy," and other stories appeared in dozens of newspapers and on technology websites and blogs following release of the report by Pres. Larry Cohen in a teleconference with reporters.

The survey of 80,000 Internet broadband users who took a real-time speed test at CWA's Speed Matters website shows a median U.S. download speed of 1.9 megabits per second (mbps), compared, for instance, with 61 mbps in Japan, 45 mbps in South Korea, 17 mbps in France and 7 mbps in Canada.  More than 95 percent of the participants used DSL and cable modems.

"We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world.  People don't pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind," USA Today quoted Cohen.  "In order to maintain our place in today's global economy – and to create the jobs we need – our government must act."

The survey report, posted at www.SpeedMatters.org, breaks down speeds for every state and the District of Columbia, with rankings showing Alaska at the bottom with a median download speed of about one-half mbps, and Rhode Island No. 1 at 5 mbps.

Maps for each state show the speeds in various geographic locations – graphically demonstrating that the higher speeds tend to be around larger cities, with rural areas showing patches of red indicating speeds less than 768 kilobits per second (kbps).

The fact that the CWA national speed test report is unique actually spotlights a huge problem – the U.S. government has no idea where high speed services are deployed and what they cost, Cohen told reporters, noting that the Federal Communications Commission uses a badly outdated definition for "broadband" of 200 kbps, barely faster than dial-up.

To rectify the problem and help move toward a national high speed policy, CWA is supporting a Senate bill, the Broadband Data Improvement Act (S.1492), which raises the broadband speed definition and calls for federal collection of deployment data with grants to states and communities for high speed mapping.  Unions are included as part of planning teams to receive grants for development projects.

"The benefits of true broadband access for communicating across the country are innumerable," Cohen said in releasing the study.  "From e-government and distance learning to telemedicine and public safety, high speed Internet access for all Americans, rural and urban, is essential to improving the quality of our economic, civic and personal lives."

CWA Nurses Hope "Sicko" Will Spur Health Reform

Calling their cause "Scrubs for Sicko," CWA nurses are part of a huge coalition of nurses and doctors who are rallying around the new Michael Moore movie – titled "Sicko" – examining America's badly broken health care system.

Campaign organizers are recruiting nurses and doctors, wearing their scrubs, to be in the audience of every theater in the nation when Sicko opens Friday. The medical workers will distribute information urging moviegoers to join them in pushing lawmakers for universal health care.

Buffalo, N.Y., CWA nurses Mary Janice Keller, area vice president for Local 1168, and Mary Gavin, a member of the Local 1133 executive board, were guests of the California Nurses Association for a June 12 sneak preview of the film and a rally and hearings at the state capitol in Sacramento, where lawmakers are considering several health care bills.  They plan to take part in the weekend scrubs events and to encourage other members to participate.

The nurses said that even though they deal daily with the inefficiency, unfairness and sometimes tragic shortcomings of today's system of health insurance, the movie was jolting. Rather than focus on societys' poor and uninsured, the movie looks at the plight of middle class people who think they're taken care of because they have insurance.

"I went from laughter to tears," Gavin said. "It was very touching, very moving and informative. No matter how people feel about Michael Moore, he's tackled something that most people won't deal with. People need to see this."

Keller said Moore spent a long time talking with nurses at the California event and to two people featured in the movie – a mother whose ailing baby died after a hospital refused care because it wasn't affiliated with the family's insurance company, and a doctor who worked for an insurance company and got tired of denying claims.

Both women said they were invigorated by the overnight trip and call to action. "It really motivated me," Gavin said. "I've definitely understood that we need health care reform but the movie has motivated me to do something about it."

Thousands in NYC Protest Verizon Anti-Union Policies

As this issue went to press, thousands of CWA and IBEW members were descending upon Verizon's New York City headquarters to stage a "We Won't Back Down" rally tonight, June 28, to protest the company's anti-worker and anti-customer policies. Some 2,000 workers were expected at the rally, with many bussing in from New England and Mid-Atlantic States.

The CWA and IBEW union members, supported by dozens of leaders from other unions and elected officials from New York City and New York State, organized the rally to spotlight Verizon's ongoing union-busting against Verizon Business employees and the sale of the company's northern New England access lines to the tiny and ill-equipped Fairpoint Communications.  The rally is also the beginning of mobilization in preparation for 2008 contract negotiations at Verizon.

The rally, staged outside the company's Manhattan offices at 140 West Street, was scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. with introductory remarks by District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton. CWA and IBEW leaders representing workers in regions affected by the Verizon-Fairpoint deal – CWA Local 1301 President George Alcott, Braintree, Mass., Local 1400 President Cheryl Ahern, Portsmouth, N.H., and IBEW New England T-6 Council President Miles Calvey -- were set to address the marchers. Support also came from the presidents of the RWDSU, UFT, state AFL-CIO, and Central Labor Council as well as from numerous elected state and city office holders.

IN BRIEF:

  • CWA members and retirees, community supporters, elected officials and activists concerned about the possible closing of the Alcatel Lucent facility in North Andover, Mass., rallied at the local community college on June 24 to show their determination to keep the plant open.

    CWA Vice President Ralph Maly, communications and technologies, said CWA will do what is necessary "to come up with a comprehensive proposal" to meet the company's demand for $6.6 million in cost savings. But Alcatel Lucent's demand that those savings must come from just 250 union workers is completely unreasonable and unfair, he said.  Maly also noted that Alcatel Lucent has yet to respond to CWA's request for more information.

    Gary Nilsson, president of CWA Local 1365, said the company's demands would require givebacks of $33,000 per employee. Instead, CWA is working to achieve those savings in other ways. "We make money for Alcatel Lucent at North Andover," Nilsson said.  Joining the demonstration was North Andover Mayor James Fiorentini, candidates for the state legislature and representatives from the AFL-CIO who pledged labor's full support.

  • IUE-CWA members this week voted to ratify their new four-year contract with General Electric with 79 percent approving the agreement, which boosts wages by 16 percent and provides significant pension increases for the 10,000 workers.  "We are happy that the majority of members agreed with the national bargaining committee and Conference Board in recognizing the value that this contract brings to them and their families," said IUE-CWA GE Conference Board Chairman Bob Santamoor.  Details of the contract can be found at www.geworkersunited.org.

  • The UAW last week agreed to a tentative labor pact with Delphi covering about 17,000 members.  Meanwhile, IUE-CWA leadership remains in Troy, Mich., where Delphi is headquartered, and continues to bargain on behalf of the remaining 1,500 workers it represents at Delphi.

    "We are studying the details of the UAW settlement," said Willie Thorpe, chair of the IUE-CWA Automotive Conference Board and head of the bargaining committee. "We have different circumstances at our sites.  We are determined to negotiate the best agreement possible that will preserve jobs and provide wages and benefits that will support working families."

  • Wal-Mart's "falling prices" are far more costly to the American economy than its shoppers know – or perhaps want to know: Its deals with manufacturers in China cost 200,000 American jobs between 2001 and 2006.

    In its weekly snapshot, the Economic Policy Institute looks at the massive U.S. trade deficit with China and finds that Wal-Mart was responsible for $27 billion of it just last year. The total U.S. trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in 2006.

    "On average, 77 U.S. jobs were eliminated for each one of Wal-Mart's 4,022 U.S. stores in 2006," EPI said, noting that manufacturing workers have been hardest hit, losing more than two-thirds of the 200,000 jobs affected over the last five years.

    "Wal-Mart's huge reliance on Chinese imports illustrates that many powerful economic actors in the United States benefit from China's policy of maintaining an undervalued yuan, its abuse of labor rights, and other fair-trade norms," EPI said. "Wal-Mart's benefit, however, is not the country's gain, as these policies have contributed directly to the ever-growing trade deficit that imperils future economic growth."

    The full snapshot and link to a longer report are available at www.epinet.org.