May 8, 2008

CWA and Political Allies Gain Election Victories in Louisiana, Indiana

CWAers made a huge difference in the May 3 election in Louisiana's 6th congressional district, sending pro-worker Democrat Don Cazayoux to the House of Representatives. It's the first time in 34 years that a Democrat has been elected from the strongly Republican district, where in the 2004 election, 59 percent of voters supported George W. Bush.

CWA helped elect new U.S. Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-La.) shown getting a kiss from wife Cherie during mock swearing-in this week, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at right.
In Indiana, Jill Long Thompson, endorsed by CWA District 4 last December for governor, won the Democratic primary, thanks to the efforts of CWA, IUE-CWA and United Steel Workers locals throughout the state.

CWA District 4 Administrative Director and Legislative-Political Coordinator Linda Hinton said joint work with USW locals – leafleting at plant gates, phone banking and mobilization – was key to winning the close election. "CWA locals and IUE-CWA locals worked hard to make sure voters got to the polls," she said. She credited Justin Hawkins, Local 4818; Bob Browder, Local 4900 and CWA Representative Jerry Schaeff for making CWA's political program work so well.

"Jill Long is a candidate for working people, she's very good on our issues, especially the Employee Free Choice Act and health care," Hinton said.

In Louisiana, CWA also worked closely with the USW – as part of the unions' new political alliance – and with the state AFL-CIO to mobilize voters for Cazayoux. Even a million dollar campaign orchestrated by the National Republican Congressional Campaign and conservative organizations to turn voters against Cazayoux couldn't break the unions' efforts.  

Valerie Downing, the congressional district coordinator for CWA's Health Care Strategic Industry Fund campaign and a member of Local 3403, played a key part in CWA's get-out-the-vote and voter education effort.   

District 3 Legislative-Political Coordinator Beverly Hicks said CWA's strategy of using local people in local campaigns was proven successful again. "It makes all the difference when campaign people are familiar with the issues that people care about and the communities they live in," she said. "We really shook the halls of Congress," she added.

The NRCC ran television ads that linked Cazayoux to presidential candidates and Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Republicans were betting that this would turn away voters, but this tactic failed completely.

CWA and USW members leafleted together outside workplaces and other facilities, organized phone banks and made sure union members and voters got to the polls.  

CWA Representative Mike Fahrenholt said union members were proud that their hard work paid off. "We won all but two parishes in the district, and the Republican tactics really helped us," he said, adding "people voted on real issues."  Fahrenholt said CWA sees another opportunity in Louisiana's 4th district, where a longtime Republican is retiring.

Former Verizon Contract Extended at FairPoint

A contract extension with FairPoint Communications covering 3,000 CWA and IBEW-represented workers in Northern New England – formerly Verizon employees – is highlighted by job security and contract successorship protections along with wage and benefit gains.

The unions earlier had campaigned to keep Verizon from selling its access lines in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, but succeeded in getting Verizon to reduce its sale price by $362 million to help FairPoint's financial position, and to win a stronger commitment from both companies to maintain and improve service, including high-speed Internet rollout.

CWA's 350 workers at the company are represented by Local 1400. The 5-year agreement provides annual 3 percent across-the-board wage increases, protects workers' job security, increases pension bands by 11 percent over the contract term and preserves health coverage with fully paid premiums for all active workers and retirees.  Cost of living adjustment language from the previous contract was retained, providing for adjustments in the final two years if certain conditions are met.

A successorship agreement "keeps the contract in place in the event that FairPoint chooses to follow Verizon's path and sell a significant portion of their assets in the northern states," negotiators reported.  Job security language prohibits FairPoint from moving jobs outside of the bargaining unit.

District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton said the workers are happy with the agreement, noting that 98 percent approved ratification, and said that the future "looks bright for telecommunications in northern New England."

After Legal Battle, First Contract for City Workers in Tulsa Suburb

A determined unit of city employees in Broken Arrow, Okla., that took its organizing battle all the way to the state supreme court now has union recognition and a first contract.

"It's been a long road, it's been tough, but we've stuck together, we've persevered and it's paid off," said Jimmy Helms, an assistant water plant manager who helped lead the effort to join CWA local 6012 and is now one of three Broken Arrow workers on the negotiating team.

Bargaining began in March 2007 for a first contract for the new unit of nearly 300 workers in public works, parks, sanitation, the city jail and City Hall – essentially all city departments outside of police and fire.

The parties went to arbitration after 15 bargaining sessions left many unresolved issues. For the union, the key issue wasn't pay but the city's insistence that it could still fire workers at will.

"The biggest thing that we fought for was not monetary, it was having a voice," said Jon Kirby, a Local 6012 steward who helped organize the Broken Arrow unit. "The biggest thing was that the city did not want to give us just cause (for termination) and we won that through arbitration."

The workers also now have a grievance procedure, seats on the city's employee insurance committee and the right to bargain any mid-contract changes in health care coverage. In addition to a 2.5 percent pay step adjustment the city offered, the arbitrator gave the workers an additional 1 percent raise. Workers will also accrue sick leave at a faster rate.  

Organizing in Broken Arrow, a Tulsa suburb of 90,000, began in 2004. After quickly collecting signatures from 80 percent of the workers, Local 6012 turned the petitions over to the state Public Employee Relations Board.

That's all that should have been necessary under a new state law governing bargaining rights for public workers in cities with populations of at least 35,000 – a law CWA fought to win.

But Helms said the city "started fighting and tried to block us at every turn – one punch after another. They kept trying to knock us back and we just kept getting back up."

Ultimately, Broken Arrow and several other cities affected by the new law took their case to the state Supreme Court, which first sided with the municipalities and ruled the collective bargaining law unconstitutional. CWA asked the Court to reconsider its decision and – against all odds – it overturned its own ruling.

East Bay Area MediaNews Workers Seek Guild Representation

Journalists leading a Newspaper Guild-CWA organizing drive at the Bay Area's largest newspaper chain have collected a "strong majority" of signed cards from would-be members and are petitioning the National Labor Relations Board for a union election.

The journalists, who work for six newspapers operated by the Bay Area News Group-East Bay (BANG-EB), want to join the Northern California Media Workers Guild-CWA.

"I'm incredibly proud to be part of our newsrooms today," said Contra Costa Times reporter and campaign co-chair Sara Steffens after the organizing committee submitted the NLRB paperwork May 2. "It's heartening to see so many of us come together, during these turbulent times in our industry, saying 'We deserve a seat at the table.' Tough decisions need to be made, but we want to be part of building our future."

About 250 Guild-eligible employees work at the chain's publications, which include nearly every daily newspaper that circulates in the San Francisco Bay Area. The chain is owned by Denver–based MediaNews Group, which last summer merged newsroom operations at the Oakland Tribune and four smaller newspapers with the non-union Contra Costa Times.

Following the merger, which put Guild membership overall in the new entity at less than half, MediaNews withdrew recognition of the Guild units at the five papers, dissolving a 20-year bargaining unit. Rather than play defense, the Guild treated the merger as a new opportunity to organize the Contra Costa paper.

Since then workers across the newly consolidated East Bay chain have formed a new union, dubbing their campaign "One Big BANG: One Guild Universe."

Despite a majority of its newsroom workers having signed union cards, East Bay management has told the Guild it won't recognize the bargaining unit based on a card-check count. As a result, an NLRB election is likely to be held this summer.

The union has taken a positive tone in dealing with company management and is urging executives to see the organizing drive as a win-win situation.

"Our reason for joining the Guild is not about how you run BANG. It's about how the world is changing around us," the organizing committee said in a letter to the publisher. "We all know that the industry is shifting quickly and dramatically, and at the moment it's not a particularly hospitable place for journalists. We strongly believe that journalists facing such conditions must become more active participants in shaping their publications, and above all they must stand together."

More details about the campaign are online at: http://onebigbang.org.

Flight Attendants Fighting for Safe Water Aboard Aircraft

AFA-CWA leaders say a proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule to safeguard drinking water onboard airplanes leaves too much power in the hands of the airlines and puts flight attendants and passengers at risk.

A few years ago, galley and lavatory water samples collected and analyzed by the EPA itself showed that about 15 percent of the aircraft had water supplies contaminated with coliform bacteria. More recent samples collected by a few of the airlines suggest that the levels are now 3 percent or less. Most coliform bacteria are not harmful to humans, but a few are, including some strains of E. coli.

Chris Witkowski, safety, health and security director for AFA-CWA, said EPA appears to have taken the airlines at their word and is proposing a rule that would continue to allow them to do their own tests with little oversight.

"We recommended to the EPA that before proposing an airline drinking water rule it should first obtain and analyze data from all of the airlines' self-tests, and also conduct its own independent tests," Witkowski said. "It was premature for the agency to issue this proposed rule based on preliminary testing data of unconfirmed validity."

The EPA tests followed a Wall Street Journal investigation of airline water in 2002, which followed-up on tests run by a 13-year-old California student as a science project. On a family trip to Australia, the teenager took tap water samples from nine airplanes and found that seven samples contained E. coli, fecal coliform or salmonella.

The fact that EPA's tests showed more than five times the contamination than the airlines' own tests showed is clear evidence that independent testing is essential, Witkowski said.

But so far EPA has said only that it "may" conduct audits "as deemed necessary" to ensure that airlines are complying with its rules. "EPA must mandate routine, independent audits to ensure the public that water on airplanes is safe for all uses," he said.

The public has until July 8 to submit comments on the EPA's 29-page "Proposed Aircraft Drinking Water Rule." AFA-CWA is gathering input from flight attendants and preparing a detailed response.