November 8, 2007

Organizing Neutrality Agreement to Cover 3,000 after Arbitration Win

An arbitrator in Texas refused to buy management's double-talk and ruled that Windstream Communications must abide by the provisions of a neutrality and expedited election agreement CWA had with parent company Valor Communications prior to a corporate spin off last year. 

The ruling applies to all of Windstream's workplaces bringing more than 3,000 of the company's unrepresented workers under the organizing agreement. Windstream, based in 16 states, is the largest provider of wireline voice, Internet, and satellite TV programming in rural America, with some 3.4 million access lines.

Windstream was formed in July 2006 following the merger of Valor, a regional local phone company, with Alltel's local wireline business, which was spun off into a new company called "New Valor," later renamed Windstream. At the time of the merger, CWA represented more than 800 workers at Valor and 1,200 at Alltel.

The issue arose when Windstream informed CWA Local 6171 in Krum, Texas, that the union's organizing agreement with Valor did not also cover those Windstream workers who formerly worked for Alltel. It argued that the post-merger company was totally different in scope and geographic range than Valor and that since "Alltel swallowed Valor" the contract language didn't apply.

The arbitrator rejected the company's arguments. "It is not important. . .to understand who swallowed whom," he said. "What is important is the commitment to" CWA's successorship language in the union's agreement with Valor. He also said the company's argument that the agreement did not apply because "Alltel swallowed Valor" was betrayed by contrary statements and filings the company made in order to "achieve favorable tax treatment from the government."

In order to achieve a tax windfall worth millions of dollars through a tax loophole known as the Reverse Morris Trust, the companies' leaders had repeatedly described the transaction prior to the merger as "Alltel merging with and into Valor." Initially, they also had named the new company "New Valor." "At some level words must square with reality," the arbitrator concluded.

CWA Telecom Vice President Jimmy Gurganus praised the efforts of the local's officers -- President Allen Whitaker, Executive Vice President Milton Grant, and Secretary-Treasurer Linda James -- and CWA Representative Jerrell Miller for the arbitration victory. "They did a tremendous job in preparing evidence in what was a very complex arbitration."

CWA Leads the Way to Political Wins in Va., Ky., N.J.

CWA members and retirees made a huge difference in key political races this week in Kentucky, Virginia and New Jersey where CWA played a lead role in state campaigns.  

Mike Garkovich, president of CWA Local 3372 in Lexington, Ky., said CWA was one of the earliest supporters of the newly elected governor, Steve Beshear, and running mate Daniel Mongiardo.

"We got behind him early and were determined to turn the political tide in Kentucky," Garkovich said. Beverly Hicks, assistant to the District 3 vice president, coordinated the campaign activities for CWA; three CWAers -- Karen Murphy, District 3; Jan Carol Garkovich, Local 3372, and Matt Skidmore, Local 4400 – worked on the campaign in strategic areas. CWA member volunteers from every local in the state spent many weeks in neighborhood walks and literature drops, phone banking and final get-out-the-vote activities.

CWAers walked precincts every Saturday over the past five weeks, in Ashville, Louisville, Lexington, Somerset and other areas. Others staffed Local 3372's union hall, equipped with extra telephone lines for phone banking, and they were joined by members of the UAW and the Laborers, Garkovich said.

Faye Liebermann, a CWA activist and retired Verizon customer service representative, said she volunteers on political campaigns "to get candidates elected who understand what working families are going through." Affordable health care and prescription drugs are extremely critical issues, "they're the key foundation for basic survival" and Kentucky families need help, she said. "We're already very excited about the 2008 campaign in Kentucky. It's time to ditch Mitch," she said, referring to Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.

It was the support of CWA's top officers that helped make the campaigns so successful, said CWA Political Director Alfonso Pollard. "When President Cohen met with members in Lexington, Kentucky, when EVP Jeff Rechenbach joined walks in Virginia Beach and Newport News, and when Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling met with activists in northern Virginia, the energy level of our members soared, and so did their participation in walks and phone-banking." 

It was CWA that got Virginia on the labor movement's radar screen for Election 2007, Cohen said. Those efforts resulted in Democrats winning four seats and control of the state senate, ending the decade-long dominance by Republicans. Democrats also picked up seats in the state assembly which still has a Republican majority.

Dolores Trevino-Gerber, chairperson of Local 2222's legislative committee, coordinated CWA's efforts, with support from full time field workers Matt Yeargin, Local 2205; Scott Wilson, Local 2252; and Cindy Arrington and Judy Sibley, IUE-CWA Local 82161, and all CWA locals. In northern Virginia, members of Locals 2222 and 2252 staffed phone banks every Thursday evening, and workers at CWA headquarters also volunteered their time, generating 1,105 phone calls to Virginia union members. Throughout the state, CWAers were active. In southwestern Virginia, Locals 2204 and IUE-CWA 82161 did targeted phone banking and joined in neighborhood walks, as did IUE-CWA Local 82162 and in the Newport News-Norfolk area, Locals 2202 and 2205.

Gerber said the walks and phone banks were targeted to the specific districts where labor-supported candidates were strong and where union volunteers' actions could make a real difference. In districts without targeted races, like Richmond, members of CWA Local 2201 joined get-out-the-vote work in Fredericksburg, Prince William County and other locations.

The coordination and cooperation was so strong, Gerber said. Now, "everyone's looking ahead to 2008 and a big senate race. More turnout and more seats – that's the goal for next year," she said.

In New Jersey, 90 percent of CWA-endorsed candidates for the State Senate and Assembly were elected or returned to office. The Democratic majority in the senate grew by one to 23-17. Democrats lost two seats in the assembly but still control the body with a 48-32 margin.

Don Rice, CWA's legislative-political director for New Jersey, said CWA built a long term campaign, starting with an initial voter registration drive months ago, to mailings and worksite leaflets, to phone banks and labor walks and ending with a major get-out-the-vote push on Election Day.

"Locals did their own phone banks and also participated in AFL-CIO phone banking. On Election Day, there were 700 CWAers going door-to-door and working phone banks one last time to get people to the polls," he said.

After Crew is Sickened, AFA-CWA Renews Call for Cabin Air Testing

Citing a report this week of a US Airways flight crew being hospitalized for symptoms of apparent carbon monoxide poisoning, AFA-CWA renewed its call for legislation to provide for research on aircraft cabin air quality.

The two pilots and three flight attendants complained of a foul odor in and around the cockpit on a flight from Washington to Boston Nov. 4.  The aircraft returned to Washington and the crew and passengers changed planes and took off once again.  However, the crew experienced headaches and nausea in flight and received treatment after arriving in Boston.  None of the 81 passengers reported problems.

"Poor cabin air quality has been an issue at the forefront of AFA-CWA for years and our efforts to make significant advances in the identification, treatment and ultimate removal of the problem as been thwarted by several U.S. carriers and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)," said AFA-CWA President Pat Friend.

The union has participated in an extensive study with the Occupational Health Research Consortium in Aviation to identify health issues related to poor cabin air quality, she noted.  However, the research has been stymied because "Carriers have repeatedly prevented flight attendants from carrying small, unobtrusive sampling devices onboard aircraft to capture air quality samples," she said.

AFA-CWA is pressing the U.S. Senate to follow the example of the House in allowing for the collection and analysis of cabin air samples as part of the pending FAA budget reauthorization bill.

'Say-on-Pay' at Verizon a Major CWA Victory

The pay and perks of Verizon executives face closer scrutiny from shareholders starting in 2009, a major victory for CWA, the IBEW, AFL-CIO and retirees who worked for corporate governance reform.

The company on Nov. 2 announced it will hold a vote each year for investors to approve or disapprove executive compensation packages. While the vote is non-binding, it will create a public record of whether Verizon's board acts in accordance with its shareholders' wishes. Among those deeply concerned about runaway executive pay at Verizon are CWA members who in their 401(k) plans own more than $2 billion in Verizon stock.

Verizon also acted to limit conflicts of interest by ensuring that the company's compensation consultants will no longer be allowed to perform any other work for the company, and it redefined the executive severance packages, which cannot exceed 2.99 percent of the executives' pay, to include the value of future services the departed executives might provide as consultants.

At the shareholder meeting last May in Pittsburgh, District 13 rallied CWA members from across Pennsylvania, joined by Steelworkers and others in a march by 1,200 supporters to the meeting site to demand governance reform and also bargaining rights for Verizon Business techs seeking union recognition.

The resolution calling for the up or down advisory vote on executive pay was adopted by a 50.18 percent majority of shares voted. Bowing to that pressure, Verizon this month became only the second company to adopt annual advisory votes. Aflac, the world's largest seller of supplemental health insurance, became the first in February.

Further information is available on the website CWA constructed to inform shareholders at http://investor.cwa-union.org/verizon.

CWA Charges Embarq's Slashing of Retiree Health Care is Illegal

CWA this week filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB against Embarq, contending the company's announced plan to slash retiree health benefits for future as well as current retirees is a unilateral change that ignores its obligation to bargain with the union.

The company earlier announced that it would drop retiree health benefits entirely for employees hired or rehired after Jan. 1, 2008, and further, that it was cutting health care for current retirees who are Medicare-eligible, as well as capping their life insurance at $10,000.  The latter cuts average $2,000 per year for each of the 14,500 retirees and dependents affected, both management and union.

The initial charges were filed in Tennessee and North Carolina and further charges will be filed in 11 other states where CWA represents Embarq workers.  The company was created last year as the spinoff of Sprint's local phone operations.

NABET-CWA Charges Bad-Faith Bargaining by ABC

NABET-CWA leaders are taking a tough stance with ABC in the wake of what sector President John Clark says is a "premature" final offer that "we do not regard as beneficial to our membership."

The union, which has been in talks with the Disney-owned network for eight months, recently filed several unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB alleging bad-faith bargaining.

NABET's contract at ABC expired March 31. In May, members voted overwhelmingly to strike if the company refuses to offer a fair contract to the 2,500 technicians, camera operators, news writers and other employees the union represents at ABC nationwide

Talks between NABET and ABC broke off in Chicago on Oct. 18 and no new sessions are scheduled. Seniority and job security issues remain major sticking points. While movement has been made to protect members' pension plan – which the company early in negotiations threatened to freeze – ABC wants the union to make unacceptable concessions in return.

"Conditioning the (pension) resolution, on which both parties worked so hard last week, on our acceptance of your dangerous and excessive seniority proposal is tantamount to kidnapping for ransom," Clark said in a letter to Jeffrey Ruthizer, senior vice president for labor relations at ABC. "Such hostage-taking would be despicable in any circumstances, but it is especially repugnant when it is perpetrated by a self-espoused family-friendly employer like the Walt Disney Company."

The company's full contract offer, Clark's letter and details from each bargaining session are available online at www.abc-contract.info.

IN BRIEF:

  • Democratic presidential candidates Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, and Bill Richardson told Iowans of the critical importance of CWA's "Speed Matters" initiative during campaign events this week.

    At Marshalltown Community College, Biden said CWA's campaign to improve the quality, affordability, and availability of high-speed broadband service played a vital role in education as students rely more and more upon access to the Internet as part of their studies. At a hospital in West Burlington, Clinton spoke of the critical role high-speed Internet had in health care. In Ames, Dodd cited the important of broadband to job creation and economic development in rural communities. Richardson, appearing in Marshalltown, spoke of how he, as New Mexico's governor, launched "Wire New Mexico" project to create a statewide high-speed, high capacity data, voice and communications system.

    Candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama endorsed CWA's campaign earlier in campaign stops in Iowa. Visit www.cwa-union.org/source, CWA's website for communicators, to view pictures and videos of the candidates addressing Speed Matters.


  • A management lawyer who served as a Reagan appointee to the National Labor Relations Board criticized a Sept. 29 decision by the Bush board that lowered the NLRB's longtime recognition bar doctrine when workers gain representation in a card check. Their ruling gives workers and rival unions a 45-day period after card check recognition to file a decertification or election petition. Beforehand, such petitions were barred for one year after recognition.

    The former member, Marshall Babson, questioned the board's "premise" for changing the recognition bar noting that card checks have their basis in voluntary recognition which "goes back to 1935" and the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. "There is nothing in the statute that requires opposition to organization," said Babson.


  • Here are the latest updates at our website for communicators, www.cwa-union.org/source: A new Featured Audio and Featured Photo highlighting CWA's campaign to "Stop the Sale" of Verizon's New England access lines to FairPoint Communications; new photos of presidential candidates endorsing our "Speed Matters" campaign in Iowa; new clip art and cartoons in the Artwork section; plus, of course, the latest issue of the weekly CWA Newsletter. You can now get quick access to The Source from CWA's website by clicking on the "Tools for Communicators" button on the navigation bar.