June 11, 2009

You Can Meet Vice President Biden

Vice President Joe Biden will address CWAers at the joint convention/legislative-political conference on June 24, and one lucky CWA member will be chosen to join the escort committee to make him feel right at home. Click here for your chance to meet Joe Biden.

The only requirements are that you are a CWA member and that you are an active contributor to CWA-COPE. If you are not currently contributing to CWA-COPE, you can sign up right here to become eligible.

CWAers Meet in Washington, D.C., at Exactly the Right Time

Spreading the Employee Free Choice message: CWA Local 9421 members hang a banner for Employee Free Choice over a freeway overpass in Sacramento, above, and Local 9400 members hang a sign over a Los Angeles freeway.

Political newspapers and blogs are reporting that Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has indicated that he will be ready to bring up the Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate next month.  

When 2,500 CWA members meet for Lobby Day on June 24, as part of the joint convention/legislative political conference, it will be at exactly the right time to make a difference on this important legislation. 

We'll be a critical counterpoint to the Chamber of Commerce and its "Fly-In Lobby Days" that the Chamber has been using to try and defeat Employee Free Choice. The Chamber has been flying in groups of 100 chief executive officers by state, setting up meetings with senators and staff. For California, the Chamber brought in 300 CEOs to lobby Senator Dianne Feinstein.

That makes CWA's Lobby Day more important than ever.











CWA Members Keep the Heat on AT&T

CWA members Local 3218 in Kennesaw, Ga., call for fair contracts at AT&T.

While negotiations for all AT&T contracts continue – and some progress is being reported – CWA locals have been turning up the heat on AT&T, pushing back against the company's greed.

CWAers are turning up at golf tournaments, baseball games and other AT&T-sponsored events with a message that AT&T doesn't really want the public to hear: AT&T must stop corporate greed now.

CWA Local 4321 members turned up at the AT&T sponsored hot air balloon show in Coshocton, Ohio. They distributed flyers to get our message to the public about our fight for a fair contract with AT&T.

Local 6360 members wore CWA red shirts to AT&T night at the Kansas City Royals baseball game and handbilled the crowd before the game.

CWA 4320 members are truckin' around Columbus spreading the word about AT&T's attack on the middle class. They were in Dublin, Ohio, last week, during the AT&T-sponsored 
Memorial Golf Tournament, with Tiger Woods participating.

And the traveling billboard of Local 4320 was out in front at the AT&T-sponsored Memorial Golf Tournament in Dublin, Ohio, where Tiger Woods' presence made it certain that the public got the CWA message too.

In other actions:

  • CWA Locals 6360, 6327 and 6450 held a big rally outside an AT&T location in Kansas City and got some picket line support from UAW members.
  • Members of CWA Locals 4100, 4310, 4320 and 4900 had some time on their hands so they checked out the latest at Apple Stores.
  • Members of Local 9421, along with retirees and other union supporters, held this week's weekly picket in Sacramento, with members spending their lunch hour making sure the public knows about AT&T's corporate greed.
  • Members of CWA Locals 4309 and 4340, joined by lots of retirees, spent their breaks and lunch hours "Practice Picketing" outside an AT&T location in downtown Cleveland. 

For the latest, go to www.cwa-union.org/att.

First Contract Brings Big Gains to St. Mary's Hospital Workers

CWA reached a tentative first contract covering 540 workers at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nevada. Workers, members of Local 9413, voted for CWA representation by a 60 percent margin last December.

The four-year agreement includes many improvements, including a first-ever wage scale and wage progression that provides for yearly pay increases and moves workers to top of scale in 12 years. It also provides for job upgrades and wage increases; over the four-year agreement, the average wage increase will be 18.1 percent.

One of members' biggest bargaining goals that this agreement achieved was sick leave. In the past, workers were required to use their vacation time for any illness or medical condition. Other gains included job security provisions, a grievance process, seniority and retiree health care. 

The agreement covers certified nursing assistants, emergency medical technicians, transport workers, kitchen and laundry workers, phlebotomists, and others. The ratification vote will take place next week. 

NY Times Column: Stop Scaring Americans about Canada's Health Care System

Comparing the experiences an American woman had being treated in the U.S. and Canada, a New York Times column today calls out opponents of health care reform for their phony claims and scare tactics.

Columnist Nicholas Kristof writes about Diane Tucker, a lawyer working in Canada, who pays the equivalent of $49 a month for health care there. When she felt numbness in her hand that turned out to be a stroke, she was met at the emergency room door by a doctor and treatment began immediately. She never received a bill.

Back in the United States, she fainted and was rushed to the hospital, where the first person she saw was an administrator who asked her how she was going to pay. The 5-hour emergency room visit cost more than $8,700.

"The bottom line is that America's health care system spends nearly twice as much per person as Canada's," Kristof wrote. "Yet our infant mortality rate is 40 percent higher than Canada's, and American mothers are 57 percent more likely to die in childbirth than Canadian ones."

Read the full column at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/opinion/11kristof.html?ref=opinion.