A unit of nearly 200 workers at the new AT&T Mobility
customer care center in Davenport, Iowa, organized with CWA Local 7110
in just one day, according to District 7 Administrative Director Kevin
Mulligan. A majority of the workers - over 70 percent - signed up
through card check on April 14 and the election was certified by the
American Arbitration Association this week.
The call center, just opened in December, is expected
to have over 500 employees within two years. Mulligan credited an
exceptionally committed inside committee with the victory. "Each of them
had been talking with the co-workers for weeks about the need to
organize." Affordable health care, decent pay with regular wage
increases, consistent and fair company policies were key issues.
"This clearly demonstrates the need for enacting the
Employee Free Choice Act," said District Vice President Annie Hill.
"When given a choice to organize through card check, and without
management intimidation, workers have shown time and time again that
they want to be able to have a real say in their jobs," she said.
Today's economic squeeze makes workers even more
eager to seek union representation, said Ananda Foster, a
CWA-represented AT&T Mobility employee from
Local 7901 (Portland,
Oregon) who assisted the workers in the lead up to the card signing.
In a second card check recognition announced this
week, a unit of 70 Pathway technicians at Custom Cable
Communications in New York won bargaining rights.
Local 1101
Secretary/Organizer Jim Trainor assisted the workers
in their drive.
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said this
week's merger announcement by Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines
moves Delta's flight attendants one step closer to getting union
representation and a contract like Northwest's AFA-represented flight
attendants. Delta's 13,400 flight attendants filed for union
representation with AFA in February and begin voting next week (April
23) in a union election that runs until May 28.
"Delta flight attendants want a voice in their future
and a legally binding contract that they can count on," said AFA
International Vice President Veda Shook. "Top airline executives at both
carriers negotiated legal agreements protecting their security,
compensation and benefits," Shook noted adding: "Delta flight attendants
want the same right. They're tired of depending on management to do the
right thing," she said.
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AFA Members Speak Out - click the image |
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Kevin Griffin, president of AFA's Master Executive
Council at Northwest, pledged solidarity with the Delta flight
attendants. "Our top priority is to work with our Delta colleagues to
preserve union representation at the merged airline and to negotiate a
contract that combines the best from our Northwest contract and the best
from Delta's policy manual along with raises and other improvements," he
said.
Noting that, "Mergers are very difficult in the best
of circumstances, often alienating front line workers who are the face
of the airline," Griffin stated: "Delta management needs to remain
neutral in the Delta flight attendants' representation election and let
the flight attendants decide their own futures." For more information
about the campaign, visit
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/_7z_1k915Pp5/.
If the merger wins government approval the new
airline will get Delta's name and be based at Delta's current Atlanta
headquarters. Delta's top two executives would become the new airline's
CEO and board chairman.
CWA President Larry Cohen is urging CWA locals, staff
and retirees to work with AFA-CWA in get-out-the-vote phone banking that
will be carried out in the following locations beginning April 24 and
running through May 27 in Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Washington, D.C. and
Ft. Lauderdale, and running through May 11 in Los Angeles, Cincinnati,
Dallas/Fort Worth, and New York City. To volunteer and for more details,
contact Ed Sabol at
esabol@cwa-union.org .
CWA locals representing members at AT&T across the
union kicked off the "one year to a new contract" mobilization with
leafleting and workplace actions across the districts in advance of 2009
negotiations. AT&T Mobility members also joined in, to show support for
a united CWA at AT&T and to gear up for the AT&T Mobility Orange
negotiations; that contract expires in February 2009.
From Minnesota to California to Florida, CWAers
leafleted the public outside AT&T offices, handed out flyers to members,
got information to Mobility members at retail stores and other locations
and mobilized at work locations. In Ohio, members of
Local 4320 wore
stickers stressing that CWA at AT&T was "one union, one fight and one
future."
CWAers from every district and the Communications and
Technologies sector are meeting this week as part of the National AT&T
Mobilization Committee, to coordinate actions, improve communications
and begin to plan strategies across districts for bargaining.
CWA's telecom vice presidents set up the committee to
show AT&T that even though CWA will be bargaining different contracts,
we're one union with shared bargaining goals across the company.
"At the new AT&T, rapid changes to technology and
other developments require us to think about new ways to deal with our
issues and to develop innovative strategies and unified action that will
result in successful negotiations for our members," said CWA Executive
Vice President Jeff Rechenbach, who heads the Telecom Office.
Separately, members at AT&T Internet Services
ratified a new agreement covering about 1,800 CWA-represented workers in
Districts 3, 4, 6 and 9.
CWA members will be turning out in force for the
Verizon, Idearc and IBM shareholder meetings next week, taking on issues
that include out-of-control stock options, corporate governance and
executive pay as well as anti-labor policies.
IBM's meeting is Tuesday, April 29, in Charlotte,
N.C. Verizon and Idearc both meet May 1; Verizon in Lincoln, Neb., and
Idearc in Dallas. Idearc, whose CWA and IBEW-represented workers in New
England and New York have been without a contract since last summer, is
a directory-advertising company spun off from Verizon in 2006.
CWA and IBEW activists will deliver thousands of
proxy votes from worker shareholders to the Verizon meeting. The unions
are supporting two shareholder proposals: the first would curb stock
options awarded to senior executives and bar current stock options from
being re-priced; the second would separate the role of CEO and chairman
of the board in the Verizon hierarchy.
Doing so is "fundamental to sound corporate
governance," the resolution states, asking, "How can the CEO be his own
boss? Directors are responsible for protecting the shareholders'
interests - and they must do so primarily by monitoring and evaluating
the CEO's performance."
CWA and IBEW, which have spent years battling the
company's union-busting at Verizon Wireless and lately at Verizon
Business, are also backing a "no confidence" vote against the election
of the board of directors.
The unions will hold a press briefing immediately
before the shareholders meeting starts, explaining how the company has
built a wall between Verizon's unionized landline operations and its
rapidly growing non-union areas.
The wall blocks union members "from the high-growth,
high-profit segments of the company in Verizon Wireless and its large
accounts acquisition from the former MCI, Verizon Business," the unions
say in a joint statement. "Over the last five years, union membership
has slipped from producing 70 percent of revenues to only 33 percent;
substantially weakening workers bargaining power."
At the Idearc meeting, CWA members from Locals 1301
and 1302 will be joined by supportive CWA members from Dallas Local 6171
to leaflet outside and raise questions inside the meeting. About 700 CWA
and IBEW members at Idearc have been working without a contract since
last June when the company declared a bargaining impasse - illegally,
CWA has charged -- and rolled back benefits, job security and sales
commission plans. Both unions have filed unfair labor practice charges
with the National Labor Relations Board.
A campaign website,
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/27z_1k91Oqpv/,
details the company's many bad management decisions that have led the
Idearc's stock to plummet by 87 percent in less than a year.
On Tuesday, members of
CWA's Alliance@IBM will picket
and rally outside the company's meeting in Charlotte, raising worker and
retiree concerns about executive pay, off-shoring of jobs, pay cuts and
shrinking pensions.
"While IBM employees face a decline in their standard
of living and retirees see pension checks evaporate due to lack of cost
of living adjustments coupled with increases in medical retirement
co-pay, our executives live the life of luxury. Executive greed and
bloated compensation needs to be challenged," said IBM employee and
Alliance Vice President Earl Mongeon.
Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the Alliance,
said members are calling on IBM to halt the shifting of its U.S. jobs to
low-cost countries. "At a time when the U.S. economy is in recession and
unemployment is rising it is unconscionable to continue to move work
offshore," Conrad said. "The Alliance is urging elected officials,
community leaders and citizens to call on IBM to halt this destruction
of U.S. jobs."
