August 23, 2007

Easterling to Retire in 2008 

Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling, whose trailblazing work has inspired women in the labor movement around the world, announced this week that she will retire at the 2008 CWA Convention.

"It has been an incredible 56 years as a CWA member -- an unbelievable ride for a coal miner's daughter," said Easterling, an Ohio native who rose from a telephone operator to be the first woman to serve as CWA's secretary-treasurer.

CWA President Larry Cohen praised Easterling as a tireless advocate who has served the union with integrity, compassion and boundless enthusiasm.

"Barbara has made innumerable contributions to building CWA during her remarkable career, including most recently chairing the Committee on Executive Board Diversity, resulting in adding the voices of local leaders to our Board for the first time," Cohen said. "When Barbara steps down, her talents, wisdom and activism will be missed not only throughout CWA, but also by the labor, women's and human rights movements around the world."

Easterling's efforts include passionate advocacy for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, which has been officially designated CWA's "charity of choice." Among many boards and other charities, she is an executive committee member of the Democratic National Committee, a member of the board of governors for the United Way of America and vice chair of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Following Easterling's announcement, CWA Executive Vice President Jeff Rechenbach announced that he will seek the secretary-treasurer post at the 2008 convention, and District 7 Vice President Annie Hill announced that she will run for executive vice president.  The two will join President Larry Cohen as a unity slate for the three top leadership positions.

Easterling's "unbelievable ride" took her from her Akron, Ohio, local to District 4 staff, to the CWA president's office as an assistant, then the office of executive vice president and finally to secretary-treasurer in 1992. Along the way, taking a leave of absence, she served in 1995 as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, becoming the first woman in history to serve in that position for the 13-million member federation.

Her many functions as secretary-treasurer have included managing the finances and physical facilities of CWA and organizing annual conventions as well as overseeing the CWA government affairs operation and the union's retiree program.

Well known for her outreach to women in the United States and worldwide, Easterling serves as president of the World Women's Committee for Union Network International, which has 17 million members globally. In an International Women's Day message last year, she said, "By standing together in solidarity, we have the power to build women into the greatest organizing force in the world. And we have the responsibility to do exactly that."

At the union's 2007 Convention in Toronto, she touched on her own life experience to champion the proposal to add seats to the CWA Executive Board with the goal of bringing more women and people of color to leadership roles.

"When I went to work for Ohio Bell Telephone and then joined the union, it changed my life forever," she said. "I could never have imagined what that union card would mean to a kid from Akron, Ohio. And the doors it would open and the opportunities it would present.

"But even with everything that I have been blessed to experience by virtue of CWA and the labor movement, there were times when doors weren't always open to me, when those glass ceilings came into clear view. And try as hard as you might, you never quite forget those times when the door was shut or not fully open because of the color of your skin or because of your gender or because of your religion or because of your socio-economic status."

Easterling grew up in Akron in a Polish family of coal miners and rubber workers who instilled in her strong trade union principles. She brought those with her when she began her career as a telephone operator at Ohio Bell and joined CWA Local 4302, serving as steward, secretary and vice president.

Her reputation led Ohio Governor John Gilligan to ask her to serve as chief of the Ohio Labor Division in early 1970. In that role, she drafted strong laws to protect women on the job and strengthen the enforcement of child labor laws. In 1973 she left state government to become a full-time CWA staff representative and later was promoted to administrative assistant to the vice president of District 4.  Her career with the national union in Washington, D.C., began in 1980 when then-President Glenn Watts tapped her as his assistant.

Easterling's many honors and awards during her union career include being inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1985. She has also received the International Women's Democracy Center Global Democracy award, the Ellis Island American Legend award and the March of Dimes Salute to Labor award.

Embarq Locals Protest Termination of Retiree Health Care

Embarq members and retirees in six states will hold demonstrations this Saturday to protest the company's announcement that it will terminate retiree health benefits for Medicare-eligible pensioners.

The cuts average more than $2,000 per year for every retiree and dependent affected, and, "They will have an even greater impact on families with acute medical problems who rely on expensive prescriptions," said Telecommunications Vice President Jimmy Gurganus. "This will be devastating to many people, especially for longer term retirees who haven't seen a pension increase in years and are struggling on meager fixed incomes."

Embarq, Sprint's former local phone operation, which was spun off last year, announced it would drop its $500 annual subsidy for Medicare premiums as well as supplemental coverage that pays partial medical costs when Medicare payments are below 80 percent of treatment expenses. Embarq also is capping life insurance for retirees at $10,000, a substantial cut for many.

At demonstrations in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Jersey and Oregon on Aug. 25, Embarq retirees – joined by local politicians and labor leaders in many locations – are set to tell the news media how the cutbacks would cripple their incomes and keep them from being able to afford needed treatments and drugs.

Many echoed Sandra Muntis of Elida, Ohio, who wrote to her local describing the situation of her husband, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, and her own struggle with diabetes and ulcers.  Without supplemental health care from Embarq, "we could not afford procedures requested by physicians to keep us in good health," such as colonoscopies, tests for prostate cancer and others, she said.

About 14,500 retirees and dependents, both management and union, would be affected. Embarq says it will save $30 million a year from the cuts.

"We all understand that medical costs are soaring, but abandoning commitments to our most vulnerable seniors is not the answer," Gurganus stated. "We invite Embarq to join us in pushing for a national solution to this national problem rather than joining the low-road employers that are adding to the ranks of Americans who can't afford good health care."

FairPoint Shareholders Urged to Reject Verizon Deal

At the FairPoint Communications annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., CWA and the IBEW called on shareholders to reject a proposed deal with Verizon, alerting shareholders that they could end up "holding a costly bag" of customer complaints, antiquated equipment and potentially expensive findings by state regulators.

Verizon is seeking to sell its telephone access lines in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire to FairPoint. Coalitions of consumers, workers, elected officials and others in all three states are opposing the deal because of concerns that FairPoint will not be able to improve service quality or build out high speed Internet access to residents.

CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton said, "FairPoint shareholders should vote no" or realize that they will be left holding a bag full of customer complaints and employee problems. "Cash flow from these access lines will have to be plowed back into network upgrades in order to satisfy regulators and customers who are demanding improved service quality. Management's projected profit windfall from this deal is an illusion," he noted.

IN BRIEF:
  • Is the NLRB in favor of majority card check? Apparently so, according to a Aug. 10 ruling – but in this case only when it favors an employer who wants to scuttle a union contract.

    The unusual case involved 1,600 Shaw's Supermarkets employees in Massachusetts who were in the fourth year of a five-year agreement.  After determining that a majority of workers had signed a union decertification petition, Shaw's immediately withdrew recognition instead of allowing a decertification election process to proceed.

    The NLRB's Republican majority overturned 40 years of labor law precedent in allowing an employer to withdraw recognition during the life of a contract without waiting for the outcome of the workers' vote. Until this case, only a non-party to a collective bargaining agreement, an employee or rival union – not an employer – could challenge the union's majority status while a contract is still in effect, and only through an election.

  • Nearly two years after their employer declared bankruptcy, Delphi Corp. workers represented by eight IUE-CWA locals have voted by a wide margin to ratify a new four-year contract.

    "The past two years have been a difficult period for our members and local unions," IUE-CWA President Jim Clark said. "This vote gives members options about their future on the job and allows the union to start the rebuilding process. Delphi is now more competitive than ever thanks to the sacrifices of our members. If the company succeeds, the workers deserve the credit and should share in future rewards."

    The contract, covering 2,000 workers, has been approved by the federal bankruptcy court and goes into effect immediately. Although it includes wage cuts, it also gives workers options ranging from retirement to buyouts that Clark said will let members make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

    Under the contract, plants in Warren, Ohio, and Clinton and Brookhaven, Miss., will remain as part of Delphi. A plant in Gadsden, Ala., and one in Kettering, Ohio, will be sold. The plant in Moraine, Ohio, will close. Plants in Anaheim, Calif., and New Brunswick, N.J., already have closed but still had members eligible to vote on the Delphi payroll.

  • There's no shortage of bad bosses but a worker named Pete Yonski has beat all this year with his tale of nastiness: His cold-hearted boss callously threw out the forms that Pete – a father of three suffering from a rare form of cancer – had filed for leave and disability benefits.

    "My boss threw away the paperwork I sent in and then lied about ever receiving it, knowing that filing a complaint would take months if not years to resolve," Pete wrote in his entry for Working America's 2007 "My Bad Boss Contest."

    Pete's story received 1,276 votes from visitors to the Bad Boss site, beating out five other semi-finalists. They included a waitress whose boss knowingly hired her stalker and a boss who thought it was more important to keep his employee at work instead of telling him that his pregnant wife had called, bleeding and needing to go to the hospital.

    For his troubles, Pete wins a week long trip to any of 500 locations plus $1,000 toward airfare. Runners-up will receive the famed "Bad Boss Survival Kit," complete with earplugs to tune out the yelling and a rear-view mirror—the perfect cubicle companion so you can always see the boss coming.

    Read all entries at www.workingamerica.org/badboss.