Cohen: Public Safety Bargaining Rights Critical Legislative Priority

These Arizona probation officers, members of AZCOPS, CWA Local 7077, were among 70 CWA members attending the union's National Coalition of Public Safety Officers conference in San Diego last weekend.

Members of CWA's growing public safety sector left their annual conference last weekend "pumped and excited," eager to organize, lobby and pass a federal law guaranteeing collective bargaining rights for public safety officers.

CWA President Larry Cohen fired up the 70 participants, which included emergency dispatchers, police officers, sheriff deputies, firefighters, probation and correctional officers, NCPSO-CWA President Lu Ebratt said. There are now more than 16,000 public safety officers who are members of CWA.

Cohen said the meeting was at a critical moment for winning public safety bargaining rights in the U.S. "A month ago and in December 2009, public safety bargaining rights were stripped by the Senate from legislation that otherwise was adopted. Currently, this is the top legislative priority for CWA and the entire labor movement. We need every member here to mobilize their members to contact their Senators, and ask that this legislation be debated by the Senate. Especially important: ask Republican senators why they are blocking discussion and debate," Cohen said.

"Larry was as charged and enthusiastic about public safety as we've ever heard him, and his enthusiasm was contagious. We got lots of comments about it afterwards," Ebratt said.

Participants heard from Brooks Sunkett, vice president of the Public, Healthcare and Education Workers Sector, along with District 9 Vice President Jim Weitkamp, District 7 Vice President Mary Taylor and others.

Members came from NCPS0-CWA units in states including Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Virginia and Maryland. Ebratt said the opportunity to network and learn from each other was especially important, as was a day of union training and discussions about how and where to launch organizing drives.

A key topic was winning a long-sought federal law ensuring collective bargaining rights for state and local public safety officers; that measure still awaits congressional action. "We feel very good about CWA's support for the bill and we think with the national behind us that we can and will get it done," Ebratt said.

Breaking: Full NLRB Upholds Union Election for EZ Pass Workers

The National Labor Relations Board, by a 2-1 vote, denied a request by Xerox Corp./Affiliated Computer Services to throw out a regional director's decision that certified the EZ Pass workers' union election.

In August 2009, EZ Pass workers at the Staten Island, N.Y., call center won CWA representation, with CWA Local 1102 leading the organizing. Xerox/ACS appealed the election and has refused to bargain over the past 13 months.

Learn more at www.notsofastezpass.org.

Tell US Airways and Piedmont: 'Pull the Plug on LRI'

Across the union movement, activists are taking a stand for Piedmont workers who want a union voice.

Piedmont, a subsidiary of US Airways, has hired a notorious union-busting firm, LRI, to keep workers from having a union voice.

CWA has been working with the 2,900 Piedmont gate/ramp workers to get the union representation they want, but not surprising, Piedmont management has pulled out every trick in the union-buster playbook to block workers' right to make their own fair and free choice.

So join the fight. Activists are emailing a letter to US Airways CEO Doug Parker reminding him that workers should be able to decide about union representation for themselves, without interference and coercion from a firm like LRI. We're calling on Parker to pull the plug on LRI.

Click here for more information and to stand up for Piedmont workers.

Human Rights Watch Hits Deutsche Telekom, Other Firms for Hypocrisy

Human Rights Watch has called out Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile and several other European companies for violating workers' rights in the U.S., while maintaining positive labor relations with unions and workers in their home countries.

The 130-page report, "A Strange Case: Violations of Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States by European Multinational Corporations," details ways in which some European multinational firms have carried out aggressive campaigns to keep workers in the United States from organizing and bargaining, often violating U.S. labor law.

T-Mobile, for example, has characterized employees' "talking about rights" as dangerous activity to be reported immediately to management. Read the full report at http://www.hrw.org/node/92719.

CWA and ver.di, the union representing German workers at Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile, have formed TU to represent workers on both sides of the Atlantic and to support T-Mobile USA workers who want a union voice.

Among the violations documented in the report are practices of forcing workers into "captive audience" meetings to hear anti-union harangues while prohibiting pro-union voices, threatening dire consequences if workers form unions, threatening to permanently replace workers who exercise the right to strike, spying on employee organizers, and even firing workers who support organizing efforts at companies.

The Human Rights Watch report is based on thirty interviews with workers and employees' testimony in legal proceedings, findings and decisions of US labor law authorities, company documents, and written exchanges with company management.

The report noted that U.S. labor law system is characterized by long delays, weak penalties, and one-sided employer access to staff inside the workplace and called for more stringent  overview by European headquarters of U.S. managers' practices.

Public, Political Leaders Take Stand for Minnesota NABET-CWA Local

Public television employees represented by NABET-CWA 57411 volunteer at the local's Minnesota State Fair booth, where hundreds have signed cards supporting the workers' fair contract fight, including Sen. Al Franken and Rep. Keith Ellison. From left: Local President Richard "Butch" Bowring, member David Bales, Minnesota CWA Council President Tim Lovaasen and Ellison.

NABET-CWA members at Twin Cities Public Television in Minneapolis have taken their fight for a fair contract to the State Fair, where elected officials have joined hundreds of Minnesotans in signing cards of support for the union.

Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Keith Ellison and gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton have stopped by the union's booth and signed postcards that Local 57411 members will give to KCTA and KTCI management.

The unit represents technicians, graphic designers and camera operators, with just seven fulltime jobs and 40 part-timers. Bargaining began in February, with management looking to restrict the union's jurisdiction over work and cut even more fulltime jobs.

"It's a classic case of union-busting," Local President Butch Bowring said. "When we agreed last year to wage concessions to help save jobs, TPT thanked us by laying off most of the remaining fulltime staff. And to make matters worse, now they're trying to eliminate our jobs altogether."

Bowring said members are sticking together and enthusiastically volunteering at the fair booth. "We are fighting back and we have the community behind us," he said.

NJ Public Workers Boost Spirits with Food Drive

CWA Local 1036 members in New Jersey donate nearly 1,500 pounds of food to a Trenton food bank.

Members of CWA Local 1036 have collected nearly 1,500 pounds of food for a Trenton, N.J., food bank over the last two weeks, a special effort by public workers who are being attacked almost daily in the press by the state's anti-worker, job-slashing, benefit-cutting governor.

"Our members who participated really had their spirits lifted," said Rhonda Collins, who chairs Local 1036's Community Services Committee, which launched the food drive. A spokesman for the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank said the donation is one of the biggest the food bank has received.

The local, which represents 8,000 state, city and county workers, already is planning another food drive.

CWA: FCC's Call to Clarify Broadband Issues Will Move Buildout Forward

CWA commended the FCC for continuing to work to resolve the confused "net neutrality" debate that has stalled the buildout of high speed broadband and caused the digital divide in the U.S. to grow worse.

The FCC has said it is looking to better define some key elements of broadband communications, like "unreasonable discrimination," managed services and other elements of mobile/wireless networks.

In response to the FCC's proposed rule-making, CWA said that "the FCC's processes and actions have brought majority support for its open Internet or net neutrality principles: free speech, no blocking, no discrimination and transparency. CWA and other organizations in the progressive community including national civil rights, environmental and labor groups have called for targeted legislation to implement these principles and make Universal Service Funds available for buildout. We reiterate that call now."

CWA believes that the U.S. Congress should move forward where this is a broad consensus on rules of the road for the wireline Internet while continuing to clarify the record on emerging issues.

Without support for buildout, the U.S. broadband communications network will continue to fall behind that of the rest of the world. That's why CWA supports targeted legislation, along with a goal of 1 gigabyte of broadband service for anchor institutions - hospitals, schools and libraries -- in every community, especially rural and poorer urban areas.

"Millions of Americans remain shut out of the benefits of the Internet Age. We need action to build a true 21st century Internet," CWA said.

85 Percent of Workers Say Job Safety More Critical than Wages, Other Issues

More than eight of ten workers, 85 percent, rank job safety first in importance among workplace issues, according to a new University of Chicago study.

The overwhelming response suggests that workers' concerns are often dismissed and workplace accidents taken for granted, said Tom W. Smith of the university's National Opinion Research Center. He noted, for instance, that the widespread coverage of the Gulf oil disaster "has virtually ignored the 11 workers killed by the blowout and destruction of the drilling platform."

Both the deaths and the environmental disaster could have been avoided "if optimal safety had been maintained," Smith said.

Robert Shull of the Public Welfare Foundation, which commissioned the study, said, "Unsafe working conditions end up costing the public dearly". But no matter what the cost to the general public, the workers and their families pay the highest price."

Read the full report on the foundation's website, www.publicwelfare.org.

Separately, CWA Occupational Safety and Health Director Dave Le Grande said the first joint session for CWA and USW occupational safety and health trainers will be held September 13-17 at USW Headquarters in Pittsburgh. The training is part of a five-year grant program to CWA and the Steelworkers funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

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