October 8, 2009

CWA ComTech Members Ratify New AT&T Contract

CWA members at AT&T Legacy locations nationwide ratified a new three year agreement by a strong two-to-one margin. The agreement covers about 7,000 CWA-represented workers.

"This contract achieves our members' key goal of improving employment security and safeguarding jobs. It maintains workers' standard of living and quality health care. In these extremely difficult economic times, these are tremendous achievements," said CWA Communications and Technologies Vice President Ralph Maly.

The settlement sets a "watermark" for job retention and provides new layoff protections for workers. It increases pay by about 9 percent over the contract term, including cost of living adjustments, and provides pension band increases of 2 percent in each year of the agreement. 

The health care plan provides for fully funded preventive care and new company-funded health reimbursement accounts that can be used toward any eligible health care expense; both serve to offset some cost changes in the plan, along with wage increases and other improvements.

More details are available at www.cwa-comtech.org.

Bargaining continues for about 65,000 CWA-represented members at AT&T. These negotiations cover AT&T East (CWA Local 1298), Southeast (District 3) and Southwest (District 6). CWA members at AT&T Midwest, CWA District 4, and AT&T West, CWA District 9, earlier ratified new three-year agreements.  

CWAers Blanket Capitol Hill for Health Care Reform

District 13 Vice President Ed Mooney briefs CWA members before they head out to congressional offices. Center is CWA Research Director and health care expert Louise Novotny.

More than 200 CWA members met with their senators and representatives this week, part of a wave of CWAers and union activists who are writing, calling and lobbying their members of Congress on health care reform.

"Here's what Congress needs to hear from us: 'You don't make those who pay, pay more. You make those who don't pay, pay,'" CWA President Larry Cohen told CWAers before they set off for legislative visits. Just this week, about 150 District 13 members spent seven hours on the bus from Harrisburg, Pa., and another seven hours in congressional visits.

CWA President Larry Cohen has CWAers fired up and ready to go on health care remform.

CWAers from Arkansas, Colorado, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Washington state came to D.C. as part of the AFL-CIO's "fly-in" from more than two dozen states, and about 20 District 2 CWAers from Maryland set up meetings with their senators and representatives. 

Meeting with Senator Blanche Lincoln were Local 6508 President George West; Tom Pevey, Local 6508, and Kelly and David Arellanes, retired local members who are facing devastating financial hardship following Kelly's traumatic injury and their insurer's refusal to pay.

Jeannine Maury, a member of CWA Local 7800 who works at Qwest, was part of the Washington State delegation that took labor's message to Capitol Hill.

The Arkansas CWAers stressed to Lincoln that companies like AT&T and even Walmart agree that all employers should pay toward employees' health care.

The Senate Finance Committee's health care proposal would hit employers that already provide quality health care (above $8,000 for individual coverage and $21,000 for a family) with a 40 percent tax while, employers that don't cover employees would continue to be health care freeloaders.

CWA: Health Care Reform Must 'Make Employers Who Don't Pay, Pay'

There's a lot of momentum in CWA's campaign to block any tax on health care and instead to make sure that those employers who don't provide any health care to employees pay.

Meetings and calls from CWAers and others have so far resulted in 168 members of the House of Representatives signing a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing any plans to tax health care.

The letter, drafted by Representative Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), calls on Pelosi "to reject an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle class families."

CWA President Larry Cohen said "our front line message is this: don't tax our benefits and make those employers who don't pay, pay."

"It's absurd to make employers who already are paying pay even more by hitting them with a 40 percent excise tax, while not requiring anything from employers who don't provide health care to employees. This tax will cause even more cost shifting to workers," he said.  

All week long, CWA members have come to Washington, D.C. for meetings with their senators and representatives, made thousands of phone calls to congressional offices and sent personal letters that make the case for real health care reform.

CWA members also are working with Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jay Rockefeller, (D-WVa), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and others to build support among senators for a public health care option. So far, 26 senators have signed onto a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "The number one goal of health reform must be to look out for the best interests of the American people – patients and taxpayers alike – not the profit margins of insurance companies," the letter says.

Retired District 7 Vice President Louise Caddell Passes Away

Louise Caddell was sworn in as District 7 vice president in 2008.

The CWA family is mourning retired District 7 Vice President Louise Caddell who died Oct. 4.

"Louise moved across districts and sectors in CWA in an almost unique way," said CWA President Larry Cohen. "Her death leaves us grieving but also with an opportunity to work even harder and carry out her wish for CWA: 'don't give up and build our union.'"

An active leader of Local 6143 in San Antonio, Caddell joined CWA staff in 1988, first in Communications and Technologies in New Jersey and later in District 7. Caddell was named assistant to the District 7 Vice President in 1999 and in 2005 came to Washington to head up CWA's legislative and political work. 

Battling acute leukemia, she returned to District 7 and her position as assistant to the vice president. In 2008 Caddell was elected District 7 vice president. She worked to resolve the extremely difficult contract negotiations with Qwest Communications and most recently had been working with CWA's public safety workers.

When Caddell, age 60, retired on Sept. 22, 2009, Mary Taylor, Caddell's assistant, was designated as district vice president by the CWA Executive Board.

Political action was a critical part of Caddell's life, and for more than 30 years, she helped coordinate CWA's and labor's efforts to support Democratic candidates for Texas statewide offices and the presidency. 

Caddell was named Democrat of the Year by the San Antonio Democratic League and was honored by the San Antonio AFL-CIO and Texas State Democratic Executive Committee.

A memorial service will be held on Sat., Oct. 17, at 3 p.m., at the Newcomer Family Funeral Home, 190 Potomac, Aurora, Colorado, 80011. 

In lieu of flowers, Caddell's family has asked that memorial contributions be made to: The Denver Hospice, 501 South Cherry Street, Suite 700, Denver, Colorado 80246, marked for the "new inpatient care center." More information is available at www.theDenverhospice.org.

USA 3000 Flight Attendants Vote AFA-CWA, Union Files for Election at Frontier

An overwhelming majority of the 114 flight attendants at the charter airline USA 3000 voted for AFA-CWA representation this week. They join their 240 colleagues at Lynx Aviation and Ryan International who voted earlier this year for an AFA-CWA voice.

Meanwhile, 900 flight attendants at frontier Airlines are one step closer to gaining bargaining rights and a union voice as AFA-CWA filed for an election with the National Mediation Board.

October is Customer Service Professionals Month

October is Customer Service Professionals month and CWA is working with unions around the world to recognize these workers' professionalism and the need for strong bargaining and organizing rights.

This year, CWA customer service professionals will join in a postcard campaign to press the Spanish telecommunications giant, Telefonica, to respect employees' right to organize.  In 2000, the company signed a global agreement recognizing workers' basic labor rights, but Telefonica operations in North and South America and in Europe aren't abiding by that agreement.  

In coordination with UNI Global Union, CWA will launch the card-signing effort during the last week of October. Click here to join the campaign. CWA also will distribute more than 100,000 stickers supporting Telefonica workers to CWA locals representing customer service workers.

With CWA support, UNI has published a new report, "A World on the Phone," which highlights the issues facing call center workers around the world. Download the report here.

Also as part of Customer Service Professionals' month, CWA will establish a Call Center Committee to examine issues facing workers in the industry and help them communicate through a nationwide online-based network. "This will be a great time for us to do something special to honor the hard work that is performed by all of our members in customer service," said Executive Vice President Annie Hill.

Hill is asking locals that represent customer service professionals in telecommunications, newspapers, airlines, public service and other sectors to complete a survey that will provide more information about customer service workers and their jobs. Click here to download the survey.

A New Era for Workplace Safety and Health

For the first time in more than eight years, CWA health and safety activists have a real reason to celebrate: the Obama administration's strong commitment to working families has meant a return to real enforcement and other tools to make workplaces safer and healthier.

Some 165 CWA safety and health activists at the Oct 3-5 conference heard from Jordan Barab, acting assistant secretary of OSHA, CWA President Larry Cohen and IUE-CWA President Jim Clark.

"Secretary of Labor Solis asked me to start moving forward right away to refocus the agency on its original mission, to assure safe and healthful conditions for American workers," Barab said. That means "OSHA is heading back to the original intent of the OSH Act. We're back in the enforcement business and we're back in the standards-writing business."

General sessions and workshops covered ergonomics, occupational stress, the H1N1 flu virus, workplace violence and the connection between safety and health and the economy. Participants also discussed strategy and what can be accomplished under the Obama administration.