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February
22, 2007
Bargaining
Process Triumphs over Political
Intimidation
With New Jersey State Worker Tentative
Agreement
Negotiating
against a threat by state lawmakers to
impose extreme concessions, CWA state
workers in New
Jersey reached a tentative contract
settlement with Gov. Jon
Corzine that "clearly demonstrates
the value of the collective bargaining
process," District 1 Vice President Chris
Shelton stated.
The
agreement, covering 40,000 workers and
subject to member ratification, provides a
13 percent wage increase over four years —
the first state worker pact in 15 years
that doesn't call for a wage freeze.
Even
after some increased benefit deductions,
the settlement will deliver a compounded
increase in real wages of 12 percent,
Shelton noted. Recognizing massive
shortfalls in state pension funding and
rising health care costs, CWA also agreed
to a .5 percent increase in the workers'
pre-tax pension contribution and a 1.5
percent pre-tax contribution to health
care costs.
At
the same time, the tentative settlement
improves the health care system by
providing for an expanded PPO network,
eliminating restrictions on use of
specialists and guaranteeing no changes in
benefits over the contract term.
While
the age for full retirement was raised
from 55 to 60 for new employees, the
penalty for early retirement was reduced
from 3 percent to 1 percent per year for
those five years.
Reacting
to a public clamor over high property
taxes, state legislative leaders earlier
proposed a bill that would have
drastically increased benefit costs,
removed future workers from the pension
system entirely, and would have imposed
many other concessions in hours worked,
reduced leave time and other
cutbacks.
Gov.
Corzine joined thousands of CWA and other
union members who protested the
legislative scheme last year, calling for
letting the collective bargaining process
work. Lawmakers grudgingly withdrew
the bill, but kept a drumbeat of pressure
on Corzine to press for concessions.
"After
18 months of finger-pointing and
scapegoating, this contract represents a
real victory for state workers," said
Shelton . "We bargained in the most
difficult environment we've faced since
(Christie) Whitman was governor, at a time
when private sector pensions and health
care are virtually collapsing."
Capitol
Hill Forum and Events Nationwide
Boost Employee Free Choice Act
The
Employee Free Choice Act is the best,
first step to reinvigorate the U.S. labor
movement and rebuild the now-diminished
American Dream for millions of working
families, speakers at a Capitol Hill forum
sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute
said Thursday.
"When
people talk about 'good jobs' they act as
if they came down from the sky," said Beth
Shulman, author of "The Betrayal of Work:
How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million
Americans and Their Families. "They
weren't always good jobs. They became that
way because of unionization."
Yale
economist and New York Times columnist Paul
Krugman, professors and researchers
from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Harvard and the University
of California joined Shulman and
EPI staff for the second annual forum,
part of EPI's "Agenda for Shared
Prosperity."
"A
rising tide of inequality threatens the
foundations of a system built on
fundamental fairness," EPI said. "Millions
of families cannot, despite all their
work, attain the necessary means for basic
self-sufficiency. Meanwhile prospects for
the next generation are dimming: In 2000,
the average young high school-educated
worker started out earning $5,000 less
(adjusted for inflation) than those who
entered the labor force 30 years ago."
Papers
presented by the forum speakers and more
information about EPI's ongoing Agenda for
Shared Prosperity is available online at
www.epinet.org.
The
forum fell during a week of media events,
lobbying efforts and other activities
being staged by CWA and other unions
across the country to help lawmakers and
all Americans understand the Employee Free
Choice Act and why it's so critical.
Interviewed
Thursday on the nationally syndicated Ed
Schultz radio show, CWA President Larry
Cohen explained how grossly today's labor
laws favor employers at the expense of
workers and America 's shrinking
middle-class.
"Now
it's up to management — whatever
they want to deal out," Cohen said. "They
want to eliminate pensions, they're gone.
They want to eliminate health care. It's
gone. They want to outsource your job.
It's gone."
After
ending the interview, Schultz urged his
listeners to pay attention to the bill as
it progresses in Congress and said, "This
is going to draw the battle lines of who's
for the American worker and who isn't."
Death
of Verizon Tech Prompts Protest against
Job Stress
One
week following the on-the-job death of a
co-worker, more than 100 Verizon workers
and supporters in southern California
demonstrated outside the company's Long
Beach headquarters on Feb. 19 to
protest the company's increased workload.
The
workers, members of CWA Local 9586, said
that the company's increased daily quota
on the number of jobs to be completed by
technicians has led to increased stress,
forcing some older techs to retire early.
"Verizon's increased productivity
requirements are brutal and are pushing
employees too far," said local president
Gregg Gibson.
A
week earlier, 30-year employee and fellow
union member Gerry De Cou died of a heart
attack while completing a job at a
customer's home. Gibson said De Cou had
complained to management that very morning
that he was undergoing tremendous stress
because of the increased productivity
requirements. He made the same complaint
to supervisors two weeks earlier.
According to Gibson, the company has been
shifting more workers over to FIOS work,
placing a greater workload on technicians
left to handle copper wire jobs.
"I
want to thank all of my brothers and
sisters from NABET and other CWA locals —
9000, 9400, 9510, 9573, 9575, 9586, 9587,
9588 — for traveling here from all
over southern California to stand tall
with us in the rain at 5:30 in the
morning," said Gibson. "Together, we
showed that we are strong."
Workers
were joined in their demonstration by Long
Beach city councilwoman Tonya Reyes Uranga
who urged Verizon to negotiate with CWA on
the issue. "I strongly urge Verizon
discuss this labor dispute with CWA."
Kentucky
PSC Orders Review of Windstream Job Pledge
Thanks
to CWA's intervention in public service
commission proceedings, Windstream
Communications may face a stay in its
efforts to lay off 46 workers in Kentucky
. The State PSC has ordered Windstream to
respond within 20 days to a complaint
filed by CWA, the IBEW and the state's
attorney general, stating that the company
has violated a no-layoff agreement it made
in December 2005.
In
December 2005, Alltel Communications set
out to shed its wireline properties. The
company announced it would purchase
wireline provider Valor Communications for
$9.1 billion, merge Valor with its own
wireline operation and spin off the new
wireline entity as Windstream, leaving
Alltel as a strictly wireless provider.
CWA,
representing 1,200 Alltel employees in
eight states, intervened with public
service commissions in Kentucky,
Pennsylvania and Nebraska
to protect members' jobs, making certain
that the deal was structured so that if
the new company, Windstream, failed,
creditors could not come after its
holdings to repay debt.
In
May 2006, the Kentucky
PSC approved Alltel's spinoff of
Windstream based on the company's
assertion that, "There are no plans to
change either the number or types of
employees currently working (for the
company) if the transaction is approved."
CWA,
IBEW and the attorney general filed their
complaint seeking enforcement of the
agreement on Feb. 12, following
Winstream's January announcement it would
lay off members of CWA Locals 3371 and
3372, and other workers.
IN
BRIEF:
- A
Pennsylvania appeals court has
reversed the state's approval of the
2005 Verizon-MCI merger, stating the
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission
failed to comply with the law by
approving the merger without
conditions.
In its Feb. 20 ruling, the court sent
the matter back to the state's Public
Utility Commission (PUC), directing the
body to "either reject the merger or
impose conditions that will benefit the
public in a substantial way." Said
Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge
Dan Pellegrini, "We find that there was
no evidence that the merger of Verizon
and MCI in Pennsylvania would
affirmatively promote the service,
accommodation, convenience or safety of
the public in some substantial
way."
When the merger was before the state
for approval earlier, CWA had argued
that service quality for consumers and
quality jobs for workers should be
major points for approving the merger.
- The
laughably self-proclaimed "fair and
balanced" news channel was anything but
funny this week with an outrageous
claim that American teachers' unions
are more threatening than terrorists.
Appearing
on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes
program, right-wing radio host Neal
Boortz claimed that teachers
unions are "destroying a generation"
and are "much more dangerous than al
Qaeda."
As reported in a transcript on the
website, www.thinkprogress.org,
Boortz said, "Look, Al
Qaeda, they could bring in a
nuke into this country and kill 100,000
people with a well-placed nuke
somewhere. Ok. We would recover from
that. It would be a terrible tragedy,
but the teachers unions in this country
can destroy a generation." Host Sean
Hannity agreed, saying, "They are
ruining our school system."
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