Why We Need to Reform the Senate Rules

All 42 Senate Republicans have signed a letter this week to Majority Leader Harry Reid, announcing that they will continue to delay and filibuster every piece of Senate legislative business until….they get their way on tax cuts and the federal budget.

The Obama administration and Democratic leaders support tax cuts for 98 percent of American families – those making less than $250,000 a year. But Republicans especially want a big tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans that will add $700 billion to the budget. The Republican Senators also have specific demands on the appropriations bills that fund government operations; they’re basically saying “our way or the highway.”

Just more of the same tactics that Senate Republicans have pursued throughout the 111^th Congress, making debate and discussion impossible on issues important to working and middle class families. That’s why Employee Free Choice, a bill to end the tax break for companies that offshore jobs, Paycheck Fairness and other important bills went nowhere.

This strategy of “obstruct, then delay, then obstruct again” is all too obvious.

That’s why CWA and a broad coalition of organizations are pressing for crucial reform to these rules when Senators are sworn in for the 112^th Congress. Specific principles call for an end to destructive secret holds, a reasonable opportunity for all Senators to express their views and a timely “yes or no” vote on every nomination and measure.

Read more at www.fixthesenatenow.org.

Act Now to Help Pass Public Safety Bargaining Bill

CWAers nationwide are working hard to push the U.S. Senate to act on a measure giving public safety officers collective bargaining rights. Hundreds of phone calls and handwritten letters have been sent to Senators, pressing for a vote on the bill.

“This is our last chance to see justice before the new Congress comes into power, and may be the only legislation that passes this year which will extend collective bargaining rights for American workers,” CWA Legislative Director Shane Larson said, commending activists in Virginia who have generated more than 400 phone calls and 200 handwritten letters to Democratic Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner.

The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (S. 1611), would provide public safety officers with collective bargaining rights. More than half of the 22,000 members of the National Coalition of Public Safety Officers-CWA live in the 25 states that deny bargaining rights for public safety workers.

The bill has bi-partisan support but has been held up by obstructionist tactics by some Republicans who want to delay and filibuster this measure and others.

There’s still time to make a difference. To reach Senate offices by phone, call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

CWA Commends FCC Chairman’s Plan on Open Internet

CWA President Larry Cohen expressed strong support for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s initiative to sustain open Internet principles and create the stable conditions necessary for critical investment and quality job creation in broadband networks.

Genachowski outlined his “draft rules of the road” to preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet, spur investment in broadband networks and ensure innovation and the creation of quality jobs.

CWA and other organizations in the progressive community, including national civil rights, environmental and labor groups, have called for action to implement the FCC’s principles of net neutrality: free speech, no blocking, no unjust or unreasonable discrimination and transparency.

The framework outlined by Genachowski does just that, Cohen said. The Commission will vote on the plan at its Dec. 21 meeting.

The buildout of true 21st century broadband networks has been stalled over the net neutrality debate. It’s time to end the gridlock and focus on the investment that will allow the United States to catch up with the rest of the world.

The lack of high speed broadband also has real implications for our country's economic growth, for residents in rural areas and urban communities who are encountering a widening digital divide and for communities who have no way to compete without high speed broadband.

Investment in Quality Jobs, Sustainable Growth Is Key to Economic Recovery

CWA President Larry Cohen and leaders from labor, public policy, and other progressive groups are calling on the Obama Administration and Congress to focus on jobs and programs that support economic growth, not one-dimensional deficit reduction proposals that will actually hurt job creation.

Cohen and other members of the Citizen’s Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America’s Economic Future warned that many of the austerity measures recommended by deficit-reduction panels would choke economic recovery by restricting the government’s ability to create jobs. The commission was organized by the Campaign for America’s Future.

“We cannot slash and burn our way out of the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression. The only way out is to grow our way out of it,” the commission said. The report especially cited as misguided proposals to scale back Social Security and give a tax cut to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

Three principles underscore the commission’s economic recovery plan:

• Growing the economy by investing in vital state and local services and infrastructure.
  
• Targeting the true causes of deficits, like health care costs, wasteful military spending and farm subsidies, not Social Security and programs that aren’t broken.
  
• Making long-term investments in programs aimed at promoting sustainable growth.

“Creating secure, sustainable jobs is the key to our nation’s economic recovery and future job growth,” said Cohen, noting that the United States lags behind the rest of the world in terms of 21^st century high speed broadband.

Other members of the 23-member Citizen’s Commission include SEIU, USAction, National Organization for Women and Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Read the report at http://www.ourfuture.org/report/citizenscommission.

Which Wireless Companies are Naughty and Which are Nice?

Gearing up for holiday shopping? Remember that when it comes to the latest in tech products and services, one wireless company stands out as the only choice for working families. That’s AT&T Mobility.

About 42,000 CWAers work at Mobility, providing quality service along with the very latest in technology.

That quality service comes from having a union voice. And that’s why it’s more important than ever to support companies like AT&T that value bargaining and a real partnership with union workers. In the United States today, just about 7 percent of private sector workers have collective bargaining rights, because too many employers don’t want workers to have any voice or any power.

Not AT&T. So this holiday season, make sure that AT&T Mobility products and services are on your list.

Fortune Magazine Editor: Don’t Gamble Social Security in the Stock Market

As talk of privatizing Social Security heats up again, a Fortune magazine editor and Washington Post business columnist is warning that it’s a foolish idea that would threaten the financial security of future retirees.

“You’d think that the stock market’s stomach-churning gyrations - two 50 percent-plus drops in just over a decade - would have shown conclusively the folly of retirees having to bet their eating money on the market,” Allan Sloan writes in his Nov. 25 column. “But you’d be wrong. Stocks have been rising the past 18 months, and you can bet that we’ll see a privatization push from newly elected congressmen and senators who made it a campaign issue.”

CWA members joined activists across the country on Tuesday to make thousands of phone calls to their senators and representatives, telling them to protect Social Security and keep the country’s promises to retirees.

Bad investments are only part of the problem, Sloan said, because even workers who manage to invest well run the risk of low interest rates when they retire. Looking at one fund as an example, he illustrates how a $200,000 investment would pay out as $1,048/month if the retiree had turned 66 in October 2007. Someone retiring just 18 months later, after stocks peaked in 2007, faced a different picture and would see monthly payments of just $793.

“Social Security isn’t supposed to be a gambling program, or a wealth-building program,” Sloan said. “It’s an intergenerational social insurance program, in which we make sure our parents don’t have to depend on food banks and homeless shelters when they get old. Change that into an investment program and higher-income people will have an advantage because they won’t need immediate retirement income and can wait out markets. By contrast, regular Social Security favors lower-income people - as it should.”

CWA to White House: Keep the F136 Fighter Program

CWA President Larry Cohen called on the Obama administration to block the Defense Department from stopping work on the F136 Joint Strike Fighter engine. The engine is built by about 2,500 members of IUE-CWA, members of Local 81201 in Lynn, Mass.

The Defense Department’s action would jeopardize “the types of highly skilled, technical manufacturing jobs that your administration is focused on creating and sustaining in these difficult economic times,” Cohen said in a letter to President Obama.

The House of Representatives already has voted several times this year to continue funding for this engine program. Not only does the program provide quality employment, but it is a critical part of our defense, using competition among manufacturers to produce the high quality and cost effective defense systems our nation needs.

The Government Accountability Office has determined that continuing the F-136 program will produce taxpayer savings of about $20 billion.

“The disturbance that a ‘Stop Work Order’ would cause to the F136 program and to nearly 2,500 individuals currently working on it is harmful and unnecessary,” Cohen said.

Video Editing Classes Mean New Jobs for TNG, NABET Members

An innovative CWA/NETT Academy program and the Future of the News Media Strategic Industry Fund are helping TNG-CWA and NABET-CWA members learn new video editing skills, keep their jobs and move into new jobs in a rapidly changing media sector.

Members of NABET-CWA and TNG-CWA locals in Toronto, New York, Boston, Mass., Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland, Ore., all have given the Final Cut Pro7 editing training rave reviews.

NABET-CWA members in Detroit saved their jobs after upgrading their video editing skills, and NABET-CWA members in other locations are getting new jobs and advanced job titles after they complete the program. Newsrooms increasingly are requiring TNG-CWA members to do this work, and the video editing offered through CWA/NETT Academy provides a real way forward.

Through CWA/NETT Academy, newsroom reporters and broadcast technicians get instruction in the cutting-edge technology. More than 200 media workers have participated in the training so far.

“Our training has not only saved good, union jobs, it’s helped members get promoted,” said NABET-CWA President Jim Joyce.

TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer said many TNG-CWA members are being required to edit video for their careers, and that “it’s critical that our union can provide this important training,” he said.

During a recent west coast training tour, as part of the project, members of the Media Workers Guild created a video about a local landmark, an old-fashioned barber shop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfM4nsxTuMI&feature=player_embedded

And learn more about the training CWA/NETT Academy provides at www.cwanett.org.

Corporate-Owned St. Louis Paper Pulls Plug – Again -- on Retiree Health Care

Just in time for the holidays, the corporate owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is yanking union- negotiated medical coverage from scores of retirees, telling retirees they’ll have to cough up 100 percent of the premium cost.

TNG-CWA Local 36047 will file a grievance and has scheduled a meeting for the 150 affected retirees next week. TNG-CWA also will provide information about alternatives for health care coverage for retirees as the union pursues legal options.

The action by Lee Enterprises targets people who retired under the Guild contract in effect from June 2004 through March 2010. Several years ago, the company tried to cut benefits for 200 workers who retired between 1994 and 2004, and the union has been fighting back ever since. In September, the Guild won a federal court decision that the health care benefits are a vested right and that the company must arbitrate any changes. Lee is appealing the ruling.

“After the judge’s decision in our case, I was hopeful that Lee would not attempt the same thing with our later retirees,” Local Business Representative Shannon Duffy said. “But no. They did and here we go again.”

Stand-Out Coverage: Local 1103’s ‘Eagle’ Takes Readers to One Nation Rally

CWA Local 1103, The Eagle, November 2010 issue.

The latest edition of CWA Local 1103’s newsletter, The Eagle, did a terrific and timely job covering the One Nation rally in Washington, D.C.

The Eagle’s detailed story, with a center spread packed with photos and a front-page picture of members who traveled from Port Chester, N.Y., for the Oct. 2 rally, caught the eye of our CWA communications staff. Every few weeks we’re featuring one of CWA’s many excellent local newsletters.

The Eagle’s comprehensive One Nation coverage helped members understand just how important the rally was. Editor Kevin Sheil took all the pictures and used an article from the union news service, Press Associates. Sheil said he and the local’s business agents usually write most of the copy, but in this case they had a strong story already available. That’s what news services are for, and Sheil deserves credit for choosing the piece and giving it good play.

Sheil and his local also deserve high praise for publishing a newsletter every month, meaning the One Nation coverage and other stories are fresh and timely for readers. For many members, getting a printed publication at home is an essential way to keep them informed.

Putting out a newsletter is lots of work, so a special salute to Local 1103 for doing it every month.

Want your publication featured in the weekly CWA Newsletter? Make sure we’re on your mailing list. Send to: CWA Communications Office, 501 Third St. N.W., Washington, D.C.20001.

Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, CLC. All Rights Reserved.
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