November 15, 2007

CWA Releases Locals and State Councils to Make Presidential Endorsements  

The results are in from CWA's e-poll -- the first on-line presidential candidate preference poll ever conducted by a major labor union. CWA members expressed a preference against an early endorsement and demonstrated close margins among the top vote-getters.

After reviewing the results, the CWA Executive Board voted to release locals and CWA councils to make their own endorsements.

The Executive Board urged locals to convene state council meetings to discuss endorsement. In the absence of a council endorsement, locals are free to endorse. 

Local also are encouraged to meet with other CWA locals in their geographic area and consider making joint endorsements to increase influence for a particular candidate, the board said.

Over the six-week on-line voting period -- from Oct. 1 through Nov. 9 – more than 30,000 votes for presidential choice were cast. On the question of whether to make an early endorsement, a slight majority of voters indicated that no endorsement was their choice.

On the choice of candidates, the three top vote-getters received close margins of support from CWA members. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama were the top choices. Votes were split primarily among three top Democratic candidates. About 20 percent of votes were cast for a Republican contender.

"CWA is a member driven union and we will be guided by our members' decision on this issue and all others," said CWA President Larry Cohen.

"In communities across the country, CWA members will be raising our critical issues – jobs, health care reform and bargaining and organizing rights -- for working families over the coming months, with the goal of electing a president and other leaders who will put in place the policies our nation needs to restore the middle class," he said. 

At www.cwavotes.org, members can continue to get information about all the candidates.

House Adopts CWA-Backed Broadband Mapping Bill

CWA commended the House of Representatives this week on passage of the Broadband Census of America Act of 2007, calling for the mapping of broadband speeds and access throughout the country.  The action moves the nation another step closer to bringing high speed Internet access to every American, said CWA President Larry Cohen.

"In order for our country to move forward to ensure that a 21st century Internet is available for all, we need better data to help us get there. This measure will greatly improve the quality of that information," he said. 

The bill was passed by a voice vote in the House and the Senate is on track to take up similar legislation shortly.  It incorporates key provisions supported by CWA as part of the union's "Speed Matters" campaign, which calls on Congress to establish a national Internet policy to improve the quality, availability and affordability of high speed broadband service to every community. More information is available at www.speedmatters.org.

Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, cited CWA's support for the measure in a statement on the House floor.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the build-out of high speed Internet communications will fuel the development of millions of new jobs in the United States. "We must ensure that the United States has the telecommunications infrastructure to bridge the digital divide so that every American will have access to affordable and robust broadband Internet service.  This bill puts us on that path," she added.

The bill requires the Federal Communications Commission to report the actual number of residential and business broadband subscribers per postal zip code, which would bring about a significant increase in needed data.

It also directs the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to produce a consumer-friendly online map, showing the types of broadband access available by company and area.

Thousands Demonstrate Across the Country at NLRB Offices

Angered by a slew of recent NLRB decisions that are stripping workers of their rights, CWA members and staff joined other union activists — 1,000 altogether — at a noontime rally Thursday in front of National Labor Relation Board headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.

"I'm here today because new rules from the Labor Board undo everything we worked to achieve," said CWA member Jonathan Upright, an AT&T retail sales consultant in Winston-Salem, N.C, speaking at a warmup rally before the march to the NLRB. "Why would the federal agency that's supposed to protect workers' rights actually make it harder for workers to exercise their rights and make their lives better? It's not right."

Upright and his coworkers formed their union at an AT&T mobility center early this year after management announced pay and benefit cuts.  That led workers to CWA, which has a national neutrality and card check agreement with AT&T, he told the rally participants.  They formed their union without a struggle. But now the NLRB is forcing AT&T's hand.

"Now there are notices from the Labor Board posted around our worksite instructing us how to get rid of our union," Upright said. "Our retail centers are the first in the nation to have to post these new legal notices. I just want to remind you that the Labor Board never posted a sign telling us we had the right to form a union."

Upright said he's confident his bargaining unit is strong and can withstand the assault, but he's worried about other workers. As union leaders speaking with Upright said, the assaults will end with a revolution at the ballot box next November -- which in turn will move the Employee Free Choice Act from legislation to law.

The crowd of about 1,000 members of unions ranging from the Teachers to the Steelworkers to the Seafarers marched several blocks to the NLRB building. They carried signs demanding passage of the Employee Free Choice Act to make it easier for workers to organize and bargain contracts. Workers in at least 20 cities across the country held similar rallies Thursday at local NLRB offices.

The Republican-controlled NLRB issued 61 decisions in September that stack the deck against workers. Collectively, the decisions:

  • Make it harder for workers to form a union through majority sign-up, often called card check, and make it easier for employers to reverse a workers' victory.  The NLRB ruled that the employer must instruct its workforce that 30 percent of them can petition for an election to get rid of the union.
  • Make it harder for workers who are illegally fired to receive back pay.
  • Make it easier for employers to discriminate against union organizers.
  • Make it easier for employers to escape bargaining obligations.

Workers also suffer because of long delays in their attempt to get justice from the NLRB: The AFL-CIO said more than half the decisions handed down in September were on cases that had been pending for more than four years and one case that had begun as far back as 1989.

"The Bush Board has steamrolled the rights of American workers again and again," United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts said in a fiery speech. "This agency is supposed to protect workers' rights and enforce their freedom to improve their lives through unions. Instead, we have a board that has blatantly promoted a corporate agenda at every turn. I don't know how they can sleep at night. It's time for this attack on America's workers to end."

Lawmakers Join in Questioning Verizon-FairPoint Deal

Growing numbers of lawmakers in New Hampshire and Vermont are standing with CWA and IBEW members in voicing concern over the pending sale of Verizon's access lines in Northern New England to tiny FairPoint Communications.

In Vermont, one of the more powerful state senators, Republican Vince Illuzzi, chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee, joined with a delegation of union and community leaders Wednesday in delivering 2,600 postcards to the governor from citizens who oppose to the sale.

Illuzzi told reporters, "Vermont is in dire need of broadband access for every business and household – not someday, not maybe, and not when Verizon or FairPoint gets around to it."  He and others at the press event in Montpelier noted that FairPoint, which is assuming $1.7 billion of additional debt in the deal, won't have the ability to maintain let alone upgrade services.

In New Hampshire, more than 50 state legislators have now written to the public service commission urging that the sale be blocked or else conditions be imposed to restructure the deal to reduce the debt burden on FairPoint and to provide enforceable service quality and broadband buildout standards.

CWA radio and online ads have been urging the public to send e-mails to lawmakers from the campaign's website, www.stopthesalenow.com.

Meanwhile this week, the Portland Phoenix community newspaper exposed the unrealistic assumptions in FairPoint business plan as presented to the Maine PUC.  According to the article, the company's "success depends on, among other specious ideas, the price of gasoline remaining constant for the next seven years.  (Another of those specious ideas is that the unions, whose contracts expire in late 2008, will accept zero-percent raises for the next seven years.)"

IN BRIEF:

  • It took nine years, a lawsuit and some 400,000 injured workers before the Bush administration had its arm twisted hard enough to issue a rule requiring employers to pay for personal protective gear for workers in dangerous jobs.

    The rule, requiring employers to pay for such items as hard hats, lifelines, face shields and gloves, was first proposed in 1999. Then the Bush administration came to power and the rule was abandoned. A lawsuit by the AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers and a congressional deadline have now forced the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to act.

    AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said that workers in some of America's most dangerous industries, such as meatpacking, poultry and construction, "have been vulnerable to being forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of OSHA's failure to finish the rule."

    Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, said,  "It should have never taken the threat of a lawsuit and legislation to get the Department of Labor to take these simple steps to protect workers from everyday jobsite hazards and prevent thousands of workplace injuries each year."


  • Its name conjures up images of marching bands but, in fact, the Drum Major Institute is a non-partisan group that's fighting for America's middle class. And they've recently unveiled a website to further the cause.

    At the easy-to-use site, www.themiddleclass.org, visitors can learn about legislation affecting working families and how their state's senators and representatives voted. The site also provides video about featured bills, quotes from experts and facts and figures from DMI's Injustice Index.

    The website grew out of annual reports on domestic legislation produced by DMI, which is formally called the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a name derived from a Martin Luther King Jr. quote. "Once a year just isn't enough," DMI says on its website. "We need to understand what Congress is voting on as they are voting on it if we truly want to hold them accountable."