May 1, 2008

Utica Time Warner Workers Win Inspirational Contract Struggle

CWA leaders are cheering a small Utica, N.Y., unit that took on media giant Time Warner and won – finally – securing a strong tentative contract after years of struggle against an employer that was determined to crush their union.

The 35 Time Warner Cable workers, members of CWA Local 1126, beat back the company's union-busting decertification attempt last year and last week voted 25-1 to reject management's so-called best and final offer.

Stunned, the company returned to the bargaining table and added a year of retroactive 2 percent raises to the proposal. The negotiating team is now supporting the offer, which also includes 2 percent raises annually for the next four years and a 401(k) plan with company contributions. Members will vote on the agreement tomorrow.

Negotiators for Local 1126 are recommending ratification of a hard-won contract offer for workers at Time Warner Cable in Utica. Pictured sitting are Local President Mike Garry, left, and Jeff Edwards, bargaining unit representative and steward. Standing is CWA Staff Representative Steve Miller, left, and Local 1126 Cable Unit Vice President Jim Curtacci.
CWA President Larry Cohen said that by standing up to the world's largest media company the small, courageous unit "has ignited a spark that will carry over to our campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act and inspire thousands of other cable workers at Time Warner and across the industry.  As we mobilize one million members of our movement, we will remember Utica and know that change is possible."

Local 1126, which has been without a contract at the company since 2004, was already in drawn-out talks with Adelphia Cable when Time Warner bought the company in 2006. Local President Mike Garry said the new owners figured they could easily roll over the 35 workers, the only unionized Time Warner workers in upstate New York.

"For Time Warner, it was all about breaking the union, and they didn't do that," Garry said. "We didn't get everything we wanted – they steadfastly refused to give us a pension – but it's a good contract overall."

He described the fight as, "David versus Goliath" and said of the union's victory, "I don't think we knocked out Goliath, but we gave him a pretty good black eye."

The union ran a media campaign with ads that showed the community how a company with billions in annual profits was treating its workers – all while raising customers' prices. The local rallied and campaigned not just in Utica but in other cities with Time Warner Cable franchise agreements and gathered vocal support from political leaders in the region.

Garry credited the tentative contract to "immense support from the district, the national, surrounding locals, but mostly to the unit itself. These 35 folks really hung tough."

Delta Slammed for Interfering with Employees' Union Election

AFA-CWA has slammed Delta Airlines for engaging in a campaign of voter suppression and interference during the flight attendants' union representation election.

Delta is engaging in voter suppression by urging attendants to rip up their voting instructions from the National Mediation Board.

Just after the election began on April 23 (it ends May 28), Delta erected posters in flight attendants' crew lounges encouraging them rip up their official election information and voting instructions – "Give a Rip: Don't Click, Don't Dial" – before even bothering to read about their rights. Every flight attendant was mailed the voting information by the National Medication Board, the federal agency overseeing the election.

This week, Delta flight attendants went to Capitol Hill to brief dozens of members of Congress about the airline's aggressive anti-union campaign tactics.  AFA President Pat Friend said, "The flight attendants' campaign is all about fairness and winning a democratic voice in the workplace which is why management's outrageous conduct is so underhanded."

During congressional testimony last week about the Delta-Northwest merger, Delta CEO Richard Anderson promised that management "was supportive of the democratic process and would not engage in illegal interference." The airline's voter suppression campaign and numerous reports of management interference flatly contradict his statement, AFA-CWA is charging. An AFA video about Delta management's hypocrisy can be viewed here.

Flight attendants are permitted by law to share campaign materials in their crew lounges, but "managers have been tearing down union literature as soon as flight attendants put it up," reports Northwest flight attendant Danny Campbell, who is assisting union supporters at Delta. At airports across the country, local managers have been sharply limiting the areas where union supporters can display materials. A manager in Atlanta prevented the flight attendants from erecting a small table tent in their crew lounge.

"Management will do whatever it takes to make sure we do not have a voice," said Delta flight attendant Mara Levene. "But a solid majority of us wanted this election and despite management's fear tactics, bullying and intimidation, we remain determined and are voting for AFA-CWA representation," she said.

354 Pick CWA at New Era Cap Plant in Alabama

In a tremendous show of unity, workers at the New Era Cap Company in Demopolis, Ala.,voted 202-66 for CWA representation on April 24, reports District 3 Vice President Noah Savant. Turnout was high in the NLRB-sponsored election, with 75 percent of the plant's 354 workers voting.

The company agreed to remain neutral during the campaign.  CWA also represents another unit of about 350 at the company's headquarters location in Derby, N.Y., near Buffalo. New Era is the official hat maker for Major League Baseball as well as professional U.S. basketball and hockey leagues and many colleges.

The company's attendance policy was the major issue driving the workers' campaign for a union, reported District Organizing Coordinator Liz Roberson. "Management routinely gives employees points, or demerits, for being absent for legitimate personal or family matters, such as doctors' appointments or family emergencies," she said, noting that employees are subject to discipline when they reach seven points. Workers were also concerned over low pay and management's favoritism in making work assignments.

"We found a boldness and courage that we didn't know we had," stated two of the workers on the inside committee in a letter to CWA. "It has been a great experience and a cause that we have come to believe it," said Alma Null and Laurie Fendley.

A new local is being set up for the workers and bargaining a first contract is expected to begin shortly. The workers' 13-person inside organizing committee was assisted by CWA organizers from Locals 3122 and 3108.

NABET New Yorkers Leaflet McGraw-Hill to Support San Diego Local

NABET-CWA members in New York leafleted outside the McGraw-Hill shareholders' meeting this week in support of a San Diego local that's long battled for a fair contract at a TV station owned by the publishing company.

Engineers, technicians, directors, photographers, editors and artists, members of NABET-CWA Local 59054, have been trying to negotiate with KGTV Channel 10 in San Diego since January 2006. After more than five decades of good relations between the union and management, union leaders say the company has turned its back on its workers.

"Channel 10 and NABET-CWA go back a long way," the union says on its campaign website, www.10NewsUnfair.com. "They've been together since KGTV first went on-air in 1953. Together they built a successful local television station...Now, for the first time in 55 years McGraw-Hill-owned KGTV refuses to negotiate a fair contract with its employees. Instead, KGTV went on the attack, hiring a union-busting law firm and turning on its own employees."

McGraw-Hill shareholders met at New York's Rockefeller Center on Wednesday. "The handbills were well received," NABET-CWA Vice President Jim Joyce said. "One person going into the shareholder meeting identified herself as a member of the McGraw family as she took and read the handbill with seemingly great interest. Even the corporate security personnel seemed very interested in the contents of the flyer as NABET members covered every entrance to the building."

The National Labor Relations Board has upheld charges brought by the union that KGTV unlawfully threatened and intimidated workers, interfered with lawful union activities, illegally observed union activities by shooting still photos, and installed cameras to watch workers without negotiating first with the union. Channel 10 settled the charges rather than go to trial, but management's refusal to negotiate continues.

The San Diego local has been successful at getting car dealers and other businesses to pull ads from Channel 10 and is asking area residents to boycott businesses that continue to advertise.

Memorial Week Events Put Spotlight on Worker Safety

Fighting for the safety and health of all workers and honoring those who have died on the job, CWA locals across the country held a variety of ceremonies and other events April 28 to mark Workers Memorial Day.

In many areas, locals joined with other unions and labor councils for community remembrances. At the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., just outside Washington, D.C., CWA and other unions were on hand for a ceremony to break ground on a permanent workers' memorial.

Workers Memorial Day, first held 19 years ago, falls on the anniversary of the day the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed in 1970.

"It is not a well publicized day like all the other national holidays or observances, and it isn't a paid day off, but it should be a very important day to working people nonetheless," said CWA Local 9431 President Rick Delao in a letter to his members.

Delao listed four members of other California locals, all telecom technicians, who died as a result of their work between 2003 and 2005. Two were electrocuted, one died of heat stroke and one contracted cancer as a result of exposure to asbestos.

Among the many CWA locals participating in ceremonies nationwide were California Locals 9431, 9421 and 9410, Local 7804 In Tacoma, Wash., Local 7901 in Portland, Ore., Local 1168 in Buffalo, Local 4900 in South Bend, Ind., and Locals 7201 and 7200 in Minneapolis-St. Paul. CWA-represented state workers in New Jersey also took part in a gathering in Trenton.

Members of Local 2004 in West Virginia gathered with other unions in Wheeling, at the memorial site honoring the late UAW president Walter Reuther. Their ceremony specifically remembered the 51 construction worker who plunged to their deaths 30 years ago when a cooling tower collapsed, known as the Willow Island disaster.

A story in the Charleston Gazette noted that OSHA staffing in West Virginia today is one-third less than it was when the disaster happened in 1978. Then there were 17 full-time inspectors; today there are 12. According to OSHA's own figures, the paper said non-mining workplace deaths in the state nearly doubled between Oct. 1, 2006 and Sept. 30, 2007.

In Massachusetts, unions marked Workers Memorial Day with a ceremony at the statehouse. But members of IUE-CWA Local 81201 who were out of town at an OSHA conference made sure that everyone there – including management and non-union workers – marked the day, too.

"We asked for time to explain what Workers Memorial Day is and to have a moment of silence," said Ted Comick, the local's elected safety and health director. "We're trying, whenever we can, wherever we are, to recognize it and put it into people's consciousness."