April 29, 2010

Getting Ready for the Future -- CWA Needs to Hear from You!

A new online discussion board is now available to voice your comments and ideas about the most recent Ready for the Future proposals.

More information about the plan is here. This effort is carrying out the 2005 CWA convention mandate to look at the "right sizing" of the CWA Executive Board by 2011 and to review the use of union resources to make sure our approach is effective and efficient. Any recommendations must be acted on by delegates at the 2010 convention to be implemented in 2011.

The online forum is open to CWA members and local union officers to provide ideas and feedback on the next step of Ready for the Future. Get started by logging on at http://rff.cwaforum.com and entering this access code: CWARFF2010. Note that anonymous comments can't be accepted.

The Ready for the Future plan has been a big success, following its adoption by the 2005 CWA convention. Working together, we’ve accomplished a lot, including a hugely successful strategic industry fund (SIF) program that has financed bold campaigns, like Speed Matters, telecom fights and health care and bargaining rights. We have included local leader perspective through the at-large members on the Executive Board and built an active Stewards Army that has made a real difference.

CWA District 9 Reaches Tentative Contract at Verizon West

CWA's District 9 bargaining team reached a tentative three-year contract with Verizon West that boosts wages by 8.25 percent, holds the line against health care cost shifting and ensures that a new sales incentive compensation plan for customer service representatives remains voluntary.

CWAers at Verizon West take fair contract fight to Santa Monica.

The agreement also requires Verizon to discuss ways to reduce subcontracting and the offshoring of jobs.

The tentative contract covers more than 5,500 workers in California.

CWA District 9 Vice President Jim Weitkamp credited members' strong and steady bargaining mobilization efforts as a major factor in reaching the agreement. "Members and their families stood behind their negotiating team and kept up the fight for the quality contract they deserved," he said.

"With that support, we maintained quality healthcare, accomplished pay increases that reflect members' efficiency, and moved work from Verizon Business and the Video Hub into this collective bargaining agreement. This should bring additional good paying jobs to California," said Weitkamp.

CWA locals built public support and helped keep pressure on the company. This included a resolution adopted by the Long Beach City Council that supported CWA's call to keep quality jobs in the community by corporations that have city contracts.

The tentative agreement will be submitted to members for a ratification vote.  More details are available at district9.cwa-union.org.

Solidarity, German Style: ver.di Members to Leaflet DT Annual Meeting

Ver.di members will hand out this leaflet at the May 3 DT annual meeting.

At the Deutsche Telekom annual meeting in Cologne, Germany next week, members of ver.di, the union representing T-Mobile and DT workers in Germany, will be leafleting participants as they enter the meeting.

Some 50 ver.di members will be covering every entrance at the meeting site, handing out a leaflet that calls out T-Mobile USA for its "Wild West" behavior and its poor treatment of workers who want a union voice in the United States. As one T-Mobile USA worker said, "This is very impressive! 50 people devoted to handing out flyers so that we can have rights in America? Ver.di really is with us."

Ver.di has been working with CWA to focus public attention on the double standard of T-Mobile and parent company DT, which support workers' rights in European operations but refuse to do so in the United States.

Read more at www.tuworkers.org.

CWA Reaches Agreement on Verizon 'Surplus'

CWA has reached an agreement with Verizon that provides additional payments and benefits for workers who agree to retire early or leave the company under a one-time enhanced payroll offer.

Verizon had announced that some 12,000 workers in Verizon East would be declared "surplus," and subject to possible layoff. Talks had stalled over Verizon's refusal to abide by contract provisions governing contracting out; the company backed off that position and CWA Vice Presidents Chris Shelton, District 1; Ron Collins, District 2; and Ed Mooney, District 13, were able to finalize an agreement.

Read more here.  

AFA-CWA Elects Veda Shook President; Honors Retiring Pat Friend for Lifetime Achievement

The AFA-CWA Board of Directors has elected Veda Shook as international president; she will take office when current President Patricia Friend retires Dec. 31 after 15 years of leadership. Sara Nelson was elected international vice president and Kevin Creighan was elected to a second term as international secretary-treasurer.

Shook, an 18-year Alaska Airlines flight attendant, has served as vice president since 2007 and is in charge of AFA-CWA's organizing program. Recent organizing victories include campaigns at Lynx Aviation, Ryan International and USA3000, and AFA-CWA now is working with flight attendants who want a union voice at Delta/NWA.

Nelson currently is the communications chairperson for AFA-CWA's United Airlines Master Executive Council; she has been a flight attendant for 14 years.

Creighan, who has served as secretary-treasurer since 2005, has extensive experience in accounting and membership, in addition to his work as a flight attendant and local union officer.

The AFA-CWA Board awarded Friend the Ada Brown Greenfield Lifetime Achievement Award. Named for one of the union's founders, it has only been awarded twice before.

"President Friend has been a role model and an inspiration to countless colleagues through her years of work for AFA-CWA. She serves as a living testament to the power of what we can achieve through the labor movement," the board said in a joint statement.

Friend began her career as a United flight attendant in 1966. Under her leadership, AFA-CWA's victories include whistleblower protections for aviation workers, new penalties for passengers who interfere with crewmember duties, a smoking ban on international flights, an extension of the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover flight crews and seniority protections for flight attendants in the event of a merger.

CWA COPE Contest Kicks Off May 1

What's more exciting than a trip to Las Vegas? How about a chance to win a free trip to Las Vegas by signing up for COPE or increasing your contribution by as little as $1 a week?

May 1 kicks off CWA's biggest COPE contest ever. Locals will have a little over six months to sign up new COPE members and urge those already participating to increase their contributions.

COPE contributions are the way CWA members show their support for elected officials and candidates that stand up for us. These voluntary contributions help keep our union and our union movement strong. 

Winners of the Las Vegas trip, which includes airfare for two and two nights in a hotel, will be determined by drawing and will be announced on Election Day, Nov. 9. Everyone eligible for the contest gets a CWA T-shirt.

COPE cards are available through CWA staff.

Obama First President to Proclaim April 28 as Workers Memorial Day

As CWA locals nationwide joined other unions and activists on Apr. 28 to remember workers killed or harmed on the job, President Obama did something no other U.S. president has done: he issued a proclamation officially marking the date as Workers Memorial Day.

Obama said the most recent mining disaster is a tragic reminder that "we remain too far from fulfilling the promise" of safe workplaces, as established 40 years ago by the original Occupational Safety and Health Act.

"The legal right to a safe workplace was won only after countless lives had been lost over decades in workplaces across America, and after a long and bitter fight waged by workers, unions and public health advocates," Obama said. "Much remains to be done, and my administration is dedicated to renewing our nation's commitment to achieve safe working conditions for all American workers."

The full statement can be read here.

The AFL-CIO this week released its annual "Death on the Job" report. In 2008, the most recent data fully available, 5,214, workers were killed, more than 50,000 workers died from occupational diseases, and at least 4.6 million workers were reported injured. The report can be downloaded at www.aflcio.org.

Arkansas Chamber Ads Say it All: Big Business Wants Sen. Lincoln Re-Elected

Nothing scares Big Business as much as a pro-worker elected official. Which explains why the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce is desperately trying to keep Lt. Governor and Democrat Bill Halter out of the U.S. Senate.

The Chamber is running TV ads championing Halter's Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who joined Republicans in opposing the Employee Free Choice Act and voting against health care reform.

The primary is May 18.

The Chamber ads praise Lincoln for supporting small business and family farms. The ads don't mention that Lincoln and her family collected $715,000 in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2005, while Lincoln used her political power to fight proposals to cut the payments for wealthy farmers.

CWA Proposes 'Middle Ground' to Protect an Open Internet, Promote Jobs

CWA mapped out a middle course for the Federal Communications Commission to follow in crafting rules to protect an open and free Internet.

In comments submitted to the FCC's Open Internet Proceeding, CWA noted that the FCC's National Broadband Plan sets ambitious broadband deployment goals to bring our nation's infrastructure to global standards, which will be financed mostly with private capital. The FCC should chart a middle course by adopting rules that will maintain a free and open Internet while preserving adequate incentives to promote job-creating investment in innovative broadband networks.

Network providers like telecommunications and cable companies made capital investments of more than 11 times that of application providers in 2008 and 2009, and employed almost ten times more Americans in good-paying family supporting jobs than the application providers.

CWA stressed that network providers must have the flexibility they need to manage and innovate over their networks. In turn, consumers should be protected from "unjust and unreasonable" discrimination on the Internet. Such a standard would protect consumers' ability to access all legal content on the Internet without foreclosing their ability to experience the specialized quality of service needed for telemedicine, distance learning, public safety, entertainment and other purposes.

CWA continues to urge the industry to agree voluntarily to the FCC's existing four Internet Principles, as well as a fifth regarding transparency that would require providers to report the actual speeds, reliability, contract terms, privacy policies, service limits and traffic management.