September 11, 2008

CWA Leaders Want Congressional Hearing on NMB Abuses

Flight attendants at Delta and Northwest are organizing to ensure representation at the merged airline.  Their campaign website, pictured here, is www.Deltaafa.org.

AFA-CWA President Pat Friend and CWA President Larry Cohen have called for a congressional hearing on the conduct of the National Mediation Board before the merger between Northwest Airlines and Delta Airlines is finalized. The NMB oversees organizing and bargaining rights for airline and rail workers.

In a letter to House committee chairs George Miller, Education and Labor, and James Oberstar, Transportation and Infrastructure, Friend and Cohen stressed that recent changes to longstanding policies proposed by the NMB are yet another example of the agency's outrageous attempts to thwart the ability of workers in the airline industry to organize, and must be investigated.  

"Specifically, the NMB has failed to even investigate illegal employer misconduct as flight attendants at Delta recently sought to join AFA-CWA. At the same time, the agency is racing to ram through new regulations to make employee representation more difficult," they wrote.

The current chair of the NMB is a former lobbyist for Northwest Airlines at a time when many decisions that affect the merger between Northwest and Delta Airlines are being made, they pointed out.

This board turned a "blind eye to Delta Airline management's unprecedented anti-union, voter suppression campaign" during the recent Delta flight attendant representation election, they noted, even allowing Delta to keep the name of a deceased flight attendant on the eligibility list.

"It is time to shine a spotlight on the overwhelmingly anti-worker policies of this NMB and hold members accountable" for their obvious support of the anti-union actions of corporations like Delta, they wrote.  

Congress also must examine the onerous election rules that have been implemented by the NMB that require a participation rate of 50 percent plus one of the workforce, rather than a simple majority of votes cast. This standard is out of step with every other democratic election in this country, Friend and Cohen said.

CWA Reaches 76 Percent of Million Member Mobilization Goal

With CWA activists gearing up for the presidential and congressional elections just seven weeks away, Million Member Mobilization cards and member photos from CWAers supporting the Employee Free Choice continue to flow in at a quick pace.

As of Wednesday, 62,843 cards had been sent in from locals, putting CWA at 76 percent of its overall target of at least 82,000 cards as part of labor's Million Member Mobilization. Thousands more are piling up waiting to be tabulated in the database. 

Many locals are far exceeding their original goal of collecting cards from 15 percent of their members. Among these is IUE-CWA Local 84705, which collected signatures from 100 percent of its local's 61 members, excepting for one member who is serving in Iraq and another who is on disability. The workers, employed at a GE lighting plant in Dover, Ohio, "are keenly aware of the impact that the Employee Free Choice Act would have on strengthening their jobs and the labor movement," said local President Stephen Putnam. The company has recently closed down many plants in its lighting division. "We are just hoping to survive in this economy," Putnam said.

As a whole, participating IUE-CWA locals have exceeded their Million Member Mobilization goal, reaching 102 percent of their target. NABET-CWA and CWA's Communications and Technology division have each reached 121 of their goal.

Since last week's Newsletter report, 35 more locals have met or exceeded their goal of signing up at least 15 percent:  District 1: 1051, 1080, 51011, 81214, 81246, 81274, 81284, 81298, 81359, 81359, 81408, 81495; District 2: 2106; District 3: 3121, 3412, 3511, 3802, 83761; District 4: 4004, 4108, 4123, 4319, 4326, 4501, 54041, 54041, 54044, 84863, 84901, 84903;  District 6: 6374, 86782; District 7: 87140; District 9: 9573, 29098; District 13: 13500, 88389. 

AT&T Mobility Health Care Plan Reaches Arbitration

Negotiations for a new health care agreement for 40,000 CWA members at AT&T Mobility entered arbitration this week after an agreement could not be reached with the company following two months of negotiations and mediation.

The company is insisting on shifting a significant share of the plan's costs to employees. This week, CWA told an independent arbitrator that AT&T is a financially healthy company and that its insistence on shifting additional costs to employees was unreasonable and unwarranted. Over the course of the three-day arbitration, CWA called several expert witnesses in support of its position.

The arbitrator is expected to submit a decision by end of November. CWA's agreement with AT&T Mobility provides for binding arbitration to resolve disputes in the health care plan. Four separate contracts cover CWA members at AT&T Mobility but all share the same benefit plans.

The CWA AT&T Mobility bargaining committee was present throughout the arbitration. They are Betty Witte, chair, District 3; Paul Klaebel, District 3; Rafael Castro, District 3-Puerto Rico; Holly Sorey, District 4; Jim Murray, District 6; Joe Sison, District 9, and John Alphonse, CWA staff representative, District 1.

"The company's position is unacceptable and is exactly the wrong direction to proceed as we try to find a national solution to health care," said Executive Vice President Annie Hill, who heads CWA's Telecom Office. "We want to find a solution that gets health care off the bargaining table, and also lessens health care costs to employers, but not at the expense of workers. That isn't the way to solve the problem," she said.

CWA: Call Center Right-to-Know Bill Can Save Jobs, Improve Service

Consumers have a right to know which country a call center representative is in, and that knowledge can save American jobs, improve customer service and protect against identify theft, CWA Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Rechenbach told a House subcommittee this week.
 
Testifying in support of the bipartisan Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act (H.R. 1776), Rechenbach noted the millions of American manufacturing jobs lost to offshoring and the dire economic forecasts that up to 14 million service sector jobs could ultimately go to other countries.
 
He said U.S. consumers, frustrated by distant call center representatives who may be poorly trained or simply have little experience, frequently complain to CWA's 150,000 customer service representatives at telecom companies, airlines and other businesses.
 
Americans are also "quite naturally worried about security issues and giving up personal financial and medical information to call center workers located in other parts of the world," Rechenbach said. "These customers also care about creating and keeping good middle-class jobs in America.  And they have a right to know who they are dealing with when they pick up the phone for assistance."
 
Rechenbach offered ways to improve on the bill, introduced by Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Penn.), suggesting that it be amended to allow consumers to request that they be transferred to a U.S.-based call center, and requiring that the government do a better job tracking the offshoring of jobs.
 
Recently, through collective bargaining, he noted:  "CWA and AT&T reached an agreement to bring back from offshore 5,000 call center jobs.  This was a win-win.  However, with the low coverage of collective bargaining, we should not expect that returning work from offshore and eliminating subcontracting foreshadows a new trend for American workers.  Too much of U.S. management is caught on the treadmill of lowering wage rates and consequently lowering quality, through outsourcing."

Rechenbach cited trade policies that have made matters worse: "According to the United States Trade Representative, the American Government provided more than $650 million in trade related assistance to signatories of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) between 2003 and 2007.  We understand that some of this money went to education programs which taught English to future call center workers in Central America.  The result has been the exodus of call center jobs." 

He concluded by telling committee members:  “This bill is really about giving American families a chance to be better consumers.  Let them make the choice as to whether or not they want to spend their dollars with a company that helps sustain American communities with good paying jobs or whether they want to look the other way on that notion.  When I go to buy a shirt I can clearly see a label telling me where it was made.  I can make a choice -- do I want to buy a shirt made in the USA or am I okay buying one made in a foreign land?  Quality, price and land of origin should and can be part of the choice in dealing with service-based industries as well.”

IN BRIEF:

  • State deadlines to register to vote are rapidly approaching for the Nov. 4 elections, so it's essential that CWA locals reach out now to unregistered members and their families.

    To find out when your state's deadline is – many are in early to mid-October -- and what the rules are, two nonpartisan websites are extremely helpful: the Vote411 site (www.vote411.org) sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Project Vote Smart (www.votesmart.org).

    At both sites you'll find links to registration forms for those states that allow online registration. You can also learn about absentee ballots, early voting, ID requirements and much more.


  • CWA has several issues flyers posted on the AFL-CIO toolkit that spotlight the real differences between Barack Obama and John McCain on issues like the economy, support for veterans, fair pay, health care, retirees and more.

    A color version of the flyers can be downloaded immediately, or quantities in black and white will be printed and shipped to you by the AFL-CIO at no charge.

    Go to http://www.aflcio.org/issues/legislativealert/toolkit/, click on “customize flyers” and register for the site. Click on “campaign materials,” then search “CWA” for the complete list of flyers and options.


  • With the election just seven weeks away, CWA's website for communicators, the Source, is being updated with campaign- and issue-related materials. This week there are four new political handouts highlighting the positions of Barack Obama and John McCain on key CWA issues affecting women, retirees and veterans. There are also some photos sent in by CWA members who hosted Obama-Biden parties on Aug. 28. These materials can be found by going to the Election 2008 campaign section of the Source
    http://www.cwa-union.org/source/campaigns/election-2008.html.

    The Source is updated regularly with CWA's weekly Newsletter, as well as with downloadable artwork, cartoons, and useful tools for CWA communicators. It can be reached by clicking the "Tools for Communicators" link on CWA's homepage or by going directly to the website at www.cwa-union.org/source.  


  • You didn't hear a peep from  the Republican convention about unemployment, even though Senator's McCain's speech came on the very day that the government announced the worst jobless rate in five years – 6.1 percent for August, when businesses cut 84,000 net jobs.

    The rate jumped from 5.7 percent in July. As a Wells Fargo economist told The Washington Post, "These are really ugly numbers."

    Senator Barack Obama said the jobs report "is a reminder of what's at stake in this election. John McCain may believe that the fundamentals of our economy are 'strong,' but the working men and women I meet every day are working harder for less, the typical working age family's income is down $2,000 since George Bush took office, and their purchasing power is as low as it's been in a decade.

    John McCain's answer is more of the same: $200 billion in tax cuts to big corporations and oil companies, and not one dime of tax relief to more than 100 million middle-class families.