Making the Most of Every Minute Between Now and Election Day

With so much at stake for working families on Nov. 2, CWAers aren’t wasting a minute in the final days leading to Election 2010.

Here’s some of what’s happening around the country:

• In Texas, CWA members are leafleting, making phone calls and knocking on doors to support pro-worker congressional candidates and working to send extreme anti-worker Gov. Rick Perry packing after 10 years. His opponent Bill White is a pro-labor businessman and the popular former mayor of Houston. “I think we’ve got a good chance, we’re getting really good feedback,” said Jake Taffola, CWA’s political coordinator in Texas. Among the key congressional races, San Antonio members are working hard to re-elect Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, and five CWAers are among the workers who appear in one of his campaign commercials.



• In Pennsylvania, CWA activists have leafleted at 138 worksites since September. They’ve circulated more than 17,500 flyers so far, with another big push and 5,000 more set for Monday. Phone banks are up and running in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and volunteers are turning out statewide for labor walks. Members have also turned out in force for rallies and events around the state to support Senate candidate Joe Sestak and Dan Onorato, candidate for governor.



• In Missouri, members are working the phones and leafleting worksites to elect Robin Carnahan to the U.S. Senate and re-elect her brother, Russ Carnahan, to Congress, among other key races. CWA Local 6300 and others will continue phone banking right up until the polls close Nov. 2.



• In New Mexico, members have been leafleting at worksites around the state every week and are rallying, phoning and knocking on doors for Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who is running for governor. Thursdays are phone bank nights for CWAers, who also join regular labor walks on Saturdays.

Check your local’s bulletin board or website or ask your steward how you can help Get Out the Vote this weekend and through Election Day.

Members of CWA Local 6215 were out in force in Dallas as early voting opened.	CWA District 13 Vice President Ed Mooney and President Larry Cohen, with Dan Onorato, Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania.
Members of CWA Local 9510 walked precincts for Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), center.	CWA members in New Mexico rally behind Lt. Governor Diane Denish, Democratic candidate for governor.
	At AT&T headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., Local 6300 Vice President Sonja Gholston-Byrd, right, and Chief Steward Dawn Jennewein leaflet to get out the vote on Nov. 2.

Don’t Miss the Nov. 2 CWA-COPE Contest Drawing

CWA’s COPE contest officially ended Oct. 26, but CWAers are still counting the cards of new contributors and those who have increased their CWA-COPE contribution.

“The CWA-COPE drive is a huge success, helping to raise additional funds for candidates who support working family issues and energizing members across our union,” said CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill.

As of Thursday, Oct. 28, as this newsletter issue closed out, there were more than 3,000 cards submitted and big stacks of cards yet to be counted.

The names of new COPE contributors and those who increased their contributions by $1 a week will be included in the Nov. 2 drawings that will give away several trips for two to Las Vegas, including airfare and two nights’ accommodation.

Who’s going to win?

Tune in at 1 pm eastern to find out. Hill and CWA Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Rechenbach will be drawing the lucky winners. Go to www.cwa-union.org/drawing. Can’t watch live? The video will be posted on the CWA website. Good luck everybody.

CenturyLink/Qwest Commits to Job Security, Broadband Build-Out

CWA’s discussions with CenturyLink, the company formed by the acquisition between CenturyLink and Qwest Communications, have resulted in management agreeing to provide greater job security for workers and to invest in broadband buildout, especially in rural and other underserved areas.

The agreement follows months of talks between CWA and the companies. CWA had filed objections with public service commissions in several states over the acquisition and its potentially adverse impact on quality service and jobs. With CenturyLink’s agreement to secure jobs and investment, CWA dropped its opposition to the merger.

Job security is a major issue for the 14,000 CWA-represented workers at Qwest and 3,700 at CenturyLink.There are about 20,000 non-union workers at CenturyLink.

Delta, Piedmont Elections Results in Next Week

Lots of election results next week.

Ballots will be counted on Nov. 3 in the election covering 21,000 flight attendants at Delta Air Lines, which merged with Northwest earlier this year. For the nearly 14,000 Delta flight attendants, a victory will mean union representation for the first time, and Northwest’s 7,000 AFA-CWA flight attendants will keep the bargaining rights they’ve had for more than 50 years.

The next day, ballots will be counted in the election covering 3,000 passenger service ramp and gate agents at Piedmont.

Airline workers for the first time have democratic voting procedures since the National Mediation Board implemented rules in June that follow the same standard as elections for public office in the U.S.

Why the Senate Isn’t Working Cont’d

Did you catch President Obama on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Stewart asked if “government still has the ability to be agile enough to do change?” President Obama replied that the current rule on the filibuster “makes it very difficult for us to move forward” and get the American people’s business done.

And in an on-the-record meeting with bloggers Oct. 27, President Obama said:

“I will say that as just an observer of our political process that if we do not fix how the filibuster is used in the Senate, then it is going to be very difficult for us over the long term to compete in a very fast moving global environment.

What keeps me up at night is China, Germany, India, Brazil -- they’re moving. They make decisions: ‘we’re going to pursue clean energy,’ and the next thing you know they’ve cornered half the clean energy market. ‘We’re going to develop high-speed rail in the span of five years,” -- suddenly they’ve got high-speed rail lines going. ‘We’re going to promote exports, here’s what we’re going to do,’ — boom, they get going.

And if we can’t execute on key issues that will determine our competitiveness over the long term, we’re going to fall behind.

The filibuster is not part of the Constitution. The filibuster, if you look at the history of it, may have arisen purely by accident because somebody didn’t properly apply Robert’s Rules of Procedure and forgot to get a provision in there about what was required to close debate. And folks figured out very early, this could be a powerful tool. It was used as a limited tool throughout its history. Sadly, the primary way it was used was to prevent African Americans from achieving civil rights...

And so if we’re going to call for reform, it’s got to be with open eyes and an understanding that that also means that if Republicans are in power, it’s easier for them to move their agendas forward.

But my general view is, what that does at least is it opens it up to serious public debate. Things don’t get bogged down in the kinds of procedural nonsense that makes it just hard for us to do business. During the financial crisis, half my Treasury slots weren’t filled -- couldn’t get them filled. And this is a time when we were worried that the entire financial system was melting down. I believe it’s something that we’ve got to take seriously."

T-Mobile Workers Fight Takes Center Stage at Customer Service Conference

Three current T-Mobile USA workers and a union supporter who was fired by the company outlined the company’s aggressive anti-union tactics to participants at CWA’s Customer Service Professionals Conference.

The 130 customer service professionals attending the session signed on to the campaign to support T-Mobile workers. They leafleted outside San Diego T-Mobile stores and sent postcards to Rene Obermann, CEO of parent company Deutsche Telekom. Participants also collected $600 to help the fired worker, while leaders of ver.di, the union representing German workers at DT and T-Mobile, are pressing the company to rehire him.

Ado Wilhem, divisional director of mobile communications for ver.di, and Kornelia Dubbel, works councilor for Deutsche Telekom Customer Service, updated conference participants on the campaign to end the double standard at DT.

Also on the agenda: a presentation by Cornell University Professor Rosemary Batt, a leading expert on call center work. Batt said a critical shift in the call center industry, which employs 3.6 million U.S. workers, is a move toward home-based employment that allows companies to take even greater advantage of vulnerable workers.

Batt estimates more than 300,000 Americans are now working as low-paid, no-benefits call-takers from home.

Conference participants also heard from CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill, who stressed that all members benefit when CWA grows. “We must not only effectively represent our existing customer service professionals but build power by organizing more customer service workers,” she said.

Keep updated on the T-Mobile campaign at www.LoweringTheBarForUs. org  and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/loweringthebar.

‘Critical Mass’ of GOP Wants to Privatize Social Security

At least 104 Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate want to privatize Social Security, whether they come right out and say it or not, according to an analysis by the website ThinkProgress.

“A thorough review of the voting records and statements of Republicans in Congress reveals a critical mass of GOPers who have supported privatizing Social Security. In total, 47 percent of House Republicans and 49 percent of Senate Republicans are on record supporting privatization. Some, including Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), want to go even further and ‘wean everybody’ off of Social Security altogether.”

Because so many prominent Republicans share those extreme views “it’s likely that a GOP-controlled Congress would have the necessary votes to revisit the issue” of privatization, ThinkProgress writes.

Click HERE for the full list of pro-privatization representatives and senators, or go to www.thinkprogress.org.

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