Delta Flight Attendants: ‘I Voted for a Better Life!’

In Minneapolis, AFA-CWA supporters and CWA President Larry Cohen work to get out the vote. The election ends Nov. 3.

Delta flight attendants are sharing their stories of enthusiasm about having a union voice on the AFA-CWA Delta organizing website at www.deltaafa.org. Voting in the National Mediation Board election is underway and continues until 2 pm on Nov. 3.

The 20,000 flight attendants at Delta are determined to win union representation. This includes the 7,000 flight attendants from the former Northwest Airlines, now a part of Delta, who are determined to keep the bargaining rights that flight attendants have had there for nearly 60 years.

Here’s what some flight attendants posted after voting AFA-CWA Yes!

“I voted for job security, better work rules, better pay, a better life! I voted YES!”

-- Kerri Barz, Detroit, Delta flight attendant for 10 years.

“Corporations can no longer be run by the ‘we're one big happy family’ rule. Management does not operate this way and neither can we. We need protection of our wages, benefits and work rules. I have loved working for Delta for 32 years and look forward to working for the world's best airline!”

-- Jyl Murray, Atlanta, Delta flight attendant for 32 years.

“A vote for AFA is a vote for due process. It gives us procedures which can’t be changed at Delta’s whim. It means we have one of the industry’s finest Air Safety, Health and Security departments representing flight attendant issues worldwide. Union representation works for our pilots and it will work just fine for flight attendants.”

-- Gary Helton, Los Angeles, Delta flight attendant for 31 years.

CWA President Larry Cohen joined flight attendant activists in Minneapolis who are calling their colleagues and urging flight attendants to vote for a union voice and a legally binding contract.

CWA Files for Immediate NLRB Decision on CNN Violations

CWA has filed a motion asking the National Labor Relations Board to immediately hear the case involving CNN/Team Video and 250 technicians in New York and Washington, D.C., who have been harmed by CNN’s illegal actions.

“This case has been languishing before the NLRB since 2003, and points out the total failure of U.S. labor law when it comes to workers’ rights,” said CWA President Larry Cohen. “CNN set out to get rid of union workers and their bargaining rights. Despite overwhelming evidence that CNN broke the law, today, nearly eight years later, workers still are denied justice. It’s time for the NLRB to take action.”

In November 2008, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Arthur Amchan issued a scathing decision against CNN, finding that the network created a phony reorganization scheme to get rid of workers because they had a union, NABET-CWA.

He ordered the immediate reinstatement of the 110 workers who were not rehired through CNN’s scam hiring system, called for the restoration of the economic losses of all 250 workers and ordered CNN to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA. None of CNN’s defenses was accepted by the judge.

“Two years after that decision, after the NLRB judge confirmed CNN’s union-busting practices, CNN technicians still are waiting for justice,” said Jim Joyce, president of NABET-CWA.

CWA’s motion calls on the NLRB to give the case priority over all other pending cases. None of the remedies ordered by the ALJ in 2008 have been implemented and more than 204 workers are due substantial remediation. “The saying ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ has particular relevance to violations of the National Labor Relations Act,” CWA said, because such delay makes it more difficult for workers to believe they will ever obtain justice under the law.

CWAers Get Out the Vote for Nov. 2

CWAers in Kentucky, including State Coordinator Nick Hawkins and District 3 Staff Rep. Isa Shabazz, joined a rally for U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway. Former President Bill Clinton was on hand supporting Conway's campaign.

With less than three weeks until the Nov. 2 elections, CWAers in every district are walking neighborhoods, phoning co-workers and working to get out the vote to support candidates who support working people.

As of mid-October, more than 600 worksites had been leafleted at least twice and 1,600 events, including phone banks, voter registration drives and neighborhood walks were underway, with more to come in the closing days of Election 2010. Locals have ordered and distributed more than 300,000 flyers from the Working Families toolkit.

In Ohio, CWAers jammed a rally supporting Ohio Senate candidate and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Kentucky CWA members turned out to support Senate candidate Jack Conway.

CWA’s COPE contest continues to go strong. In September alone, nearly 1,000 new members signed up for COPE, and over the past six months, 2,682 CWAers joined or increased their COPE contributions.

All members who increase their contributions by at least $1 a week or sign up as new COPE contributors are eligible for drawings that will pick winners of a trip for two to Las Vegas, including airfare and two nights’ hotel accommodation. All new or increased contributors also get the cool COPE T-shirt.

Check out the fall CWA News, with special election coverage in critical states for working families. Go to www.cwa-union.org for a review of the issues in Pennsylvania, Ohio, California and Texas.

GOP Abuses Senate Rules to Block Nobel Economist From Federal Reserve Board

Proving there’s no end to the abuse of Senate rules, Alabama Republican Richard Shelby is refusing to lift his “hold” on Federal Reserve Board nominee Peter Diamond even though the acclaimed economist just won the 2010 Nobel Prize.

Shelby, the ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Banking Committee, claims that Diamond doesn’t have sufficient experience and that there’s no time for “board members who are learning on the job.”

That’s ridiculous, says the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, noting that none of the Board members had Federal Reserve experience before serving and that Board Chair Ben Bernanke was one of Diamond’s students at MIT. “They all learned on the job,” Klein wrote. “Shelby's argument against Diamond is cover for his actual objections … simple partisan politics.”

The New York Times said if Republicans continue to block Diamond they will “deprive the Fed of one of the best minds in economics.” The Times noted critical knowledge Diamond would bring, as he and two fellow laureates “are being recognized precisely for their groundbreaking work into the ways in which joblessness, job vacancies and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy.”

CWA President Larry Cohen said obstructing someone as qualified as Diamond is exactly why the Senate rules have to change, and why the Nov. 2 election is so critical. “Republicans are out there bragging about saying ‘no’ to everything,” he said. “They don’t care what it costs our country, our economy or our struggling families. If we let them get away with it, we all lose.”

Chamber’s Ads Attack Pro-Worker Candidates In Areas Hit Hard by Offshoring

More than 1.4 million jobs have been offshored in the nine states where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending significant money to run ads attacking candidates who are fighting for American workers, Campaign Money Watch reported this week.

“The Chamber is raising foreign corporate money and supporting policies that lead to the outsourcing of American jobs overseas,” Campaign Money Watch Director David Donnelly said. “The 31 Senate and House candidates who are benefiting from political spending by the pro-outsourcing Chamber should address the controversy surrounding their foreign funding.”

The report is the latest in a series of revelations about the Chamber and its political spending and fundraising, including nearly $1 million from at least 85 foreign companies. The website Think Progress reports that the foreign donations go into a general account that is being used to buy massive amounts of advertising. Read more at www.thinkprogress.org.

To see charts showing the state and congressional districts where the Chamber is spending money, and how many jobs have been outsourced in each area, click HERE. Or go to www.campaignmoneywatch.com to find full coverage of the Chamber’s political spending.

‘Job Tracker’ Makes it Easy to Find Local Employers Sending Jobs Overseas

Want to know if companies in your town are sending American jobs overseas? The AFL-CIO and Working America have made it as easy as entering your Zip code and clicking “Search.”

The new Job Tracker website not only reveals which employers are exporting jobs from your community, but also searches for for mass layoffs and companies violating federal safety, health and labor laws.

In Toledo, Ohio, for instance, the Tracker finds 20 companies exporting jobs, another 19 firms that have laid off workers and 61 that have filed notice of intent to make mass layoffs. Further, 1,170 companies violated safety and health laws since 2000 and another 39 have been brought up before the National Labor Relations Board.

The Tracker’s sources include the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance records, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices and OSHA records.

Click HERE for the Tracker or find it at www.workingamerica.org. The site also lets you use Facebook, Twitter and e-mail to share what you find.

Along with the Tracker, the AFL-CIO and Working America have released a new report, “Outsourced,” that looks at what the practice has cost the economy and America’s working families. Click HERE to read or download it.

Julian Modjeski, 89, Retired AA to District 4 Vice President

Julian Modjeski, one of CWA’s longest-serving activists, died Sept. 17 at age 89. Modjeski joined CWA Local 5503 (now Local 4603) after going to work in 1947 for Wisconsin Telephone, where he was a PBX installer most of his career.

A union activist from the start, Modjeski was elected local president in the early 1960s. He was named a District 4 staff representative in 1971, first serving in Chicago and then in Milwaukee, handling organizing and heading up Wisconsin Telephone negotiations.

Prior to his 1986 appointment as administrative assistant to the District 4 Vice President, Modjeski served as Wisconsin state director and area director for Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Modjeski stayed active after retiring in 1987, serving as president of Local 4603’s Retired Members’ Council and lobbying state legislators and members of Congress on CWA and worker issues.

The Wisconsin Political Council remembered Modjeski’s political activism with a $200 donation in his memory to CWA-COPE. Modjeski is survived by his wife, Bonnie Murphy, who serves as the local’s RMC legislative chair.

Local Newsletter Spotlight: Great Pictures Make Puerto Rico’s UPAGRA a Standout

Above, the front page and below, an inside page from April-May issue of UPAGRA that illustrate the excellent pictures the local takes and how well editors use them in the bimonthly newsletter.

The colorful and newsy bimonthly publication from UPAGRA in Puerto Rico, part of TNG-CWA Local 33225, is the first of many local newsletters that we will feature here every few weeks.

UPAGRA, which is the name of the publication as well as the union, is generally eight to 12 pages with a variety of news stories that show how busy and active members are in Puerto Rico.

But the terrific pictures are the reason we choose UPAGRA as our first featured newsletter. With few exceptions, the photos are action-oriented and well composed. Photos of rallies and marches don’t show a few die-hard activists. They’re filled with people whose body language and signs raised high tell you exactly what’s going on. You don’t have to be able to read this Spanish-language publication to know how much pride members take in their union and how determined they are to fight for their rights.

Keep up the great work, UPAGRA! Click here to check out the Sept/Oct 2010 issue.

Want to be featured here? Please make sure the CWA Communications Department is on your local newsletter’s mailing list. Send to: Janelle Hartman, CWA Communications, 501 Third St. NW, WashingtonDC, 20001.