One Nation: A Sea of CWA Red

Union workers and activists fill the mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

CWAers had a great day on Oct 2 at the One Nation Working Together March in Washington. CWA red was the dominant color --it was everywhere.

There were more than 10,000 of us at the Lincoln Memorial, listening, cheering and standing up for jobs, justice and a government that works for all.

CWA members traveled by bus - about 142 of them, 75 from New Jersey alone - from as far south as Jacksonville, Florida and as far west as Chicago and throughout the Midwest. Others carpooled from Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and other closer-in areas.

President Larry Cohen and Barbara Elliott, a member of Local 1102 and a Xerox/EZ Pass worker, told the crowd about the two-year fight for bargaining rights at Xerox/EZ Pass, where workers face intimidation, harassment, and even firing to get their union. Barbara and 11 of her co-workers got on the bus for One Nation, to take a stand for economic justice.

Above, CWAers led a crowd of LA union members in the One Nation march. Below, in Austin, members of Local 6186/TSEU stand up for good government and good jobs.

Mario Morgan, a steward with Local 4320 in Columbus,Oh., came with his wife Rosalinda and daughters Veronica and Nephatina. "My daughters will remember this experience and will know that they're not alone, that they're always going to have people right beside them fighting for what is right. They'll know that they have to be activists, not spectators."

Stephen Couckuyt, an AFA-CWA member who came from Anchorage, Alaska, said: "I'm here for my son, I'm here for my grandchildren because I don't like the direction our country is going and how we're treating workers."

Across the country in Los Angeles, about 300 enthusiastic CWAers attended the One Nation rally, carrying banners, and signs that read, "Stop Whitman," "CWA Activist," and "Reclamando Nuestrol Derechos!" -- "Reclaiming Our Rights!"

About 200 members of CWA Local 6186/Texas State Employees Union held a One Nation rally and march at the state capitol in Austin, where they called for support for critical state services and public workers.

And more than 5,000 CWAers participated in labor walks across the country on Oct. 2 as part of One Nation. CWAers and other union activists who live too far away to attend the D.C. event were encouraged to show their solidarity by walking their neighborhoods for candidates who support working families.

NLRB: Dish Network Must Answer for Threats, Firings in CWA Campaign

After years of delays and all too often inaction on workers' complaints, the National Labor Relation Board is again standing up for workers' rights. Dish Network managers in Texas repeatedly threatened workers and fired at least one union supporter during an organizing drive for CWA representation, according to an NLRB complaint issued last week. A hearing on a long list of unfair labor practice charges is scheduled Jan. 18 in Fort Worth.

Despite the vicious anti-union campaign, 62 percent of workers at two Dallas-area Dish Network facilities, in Farmers Branch and North Richland Hills, voted in February to join CWA Local 6171. Since then, the company has accelerated its union-busting, with firings, greater use of contractors and drastic changes in working conditions.

"Dish Network is cut out of the same anti-union cloth as the cable companies," CWA District 6 Vice President Andy Milburn said. "Both units had about 50 members when they began to organize and the company has laid off half of them. But the remaining employees are determined to have a union in spite of Dish Network's tactics."

The NLRB complaint includes multiple allegations involving wages and benefits, both threats or promises based on whether workers rejected or approved the union. Managers also threatened that employees who support the union would fail quality assurance checks. One manager "coerced and threatened employees" by ordering a union supporter to leave the premises and threatening to call the police if the worker refused.

No Time to Waste: Critical Midterm Elections Less than 4 Weeks Away

About 46 members of CWA Locals 1103 and 1120 walk neighborhoods in New York's 19th congressional district to turn out the vote for Election Day, Nov. 2, above. Below, a sample mailer sent to Pennsylvania CWA members.

CWA members across the country are spreading the word about how important it is to elect candidates in the Nov. 2 elections who will fight for working families.

Here's just some of what's happening:

• CWAers have leafleted workers twice so far at 455 worksites.
   
• CWA District 4 issues a regular "reality check" e-alert that counters the spin about tax cuts, the economy and other big issues in the Nov. 2 election.
   
• Locals have held more than 1,000 events to date, including mailings to members, phone banking, voter registration drives and neighborhood walks.
   
• Locals have ordered and distributed more than 300,000 flyers from the Working Families toolkit.
  
   
• CWA has mailed out thousands of flyers highlighting the critical issues for workers in Ohio, California, Texas and Pennsylvania.

So join your co-workers, sign up for a phone bank, a neighborhood walk or to help get out the vote on Nov. 2. Check out your local union website or talk to a steward for more information.

'Citizens United' Decision Allows Spread of Anonymous, Anti-Worker Network

A network of anti-worker, anti-union organizations is getting bigger and more aggressive as it spends hundreds of millions of dollars to steamroll America's working families, a new report from American Rights at Work.

"We have seen an unprecedented surge of activity by shadowy organizations that use hidden donors to undermine the progressive social agenda for which organized labor has always stood," ARAW says.

Some of the groups are well known, including Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the far-right Club for Growth and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which not only received $1 million from the right-wing News Corp., but also gets lots of money from foreign corporations. Read more at www.thinkprogress.org.

The Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision this year and a 2007 decision on political spending have meant that donors to groups with misleading names like "Americans for Job Security" don't have to be disclosed.

The 2010 elections are being financed by a very small group of wealthy individuals and corporations whose names are never known, with most of those funds going to Republican campaigns.

Americans for Job Security, for example, has spent nearly $8 million so far in an attack campaign supporting free trade, ARAW says. Read the full report here.

Courts, NLRB Find for Guild Members in Three Critical Cases

Good news for TNG-CWA on three legal fronts: A precedent-setting win against the Chinese Daily News, an NLRB ruling in Puerto Rico and a judge's ruling on retiree health benefits in St. Louis.

• A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld $5 million in damages for Chinese Daily News workers who faced harassment, threats and firings while trying to organize with Local 9400 beginning in 2001. The battle led to a lawsuit over unpaid overtime and no breaks. TNG-CWA General Counsel Barbara Camens called the ruling a "great precedent" confirming that most reporters are covered by wage and hour law. No word on whether the company will continue its appeals.
   
• An NLRB judge in Puerto Rico found that El Vocero unlawfully fired 107 circulation workers, members of UPAGRA, TNG-CWA Local 33225, in order to move their jobs to a non-union shell company. The judge found many other violations and rejected the company's claims of poverty. "The credible evidence reveals that El Vocero's financial situation was improving - albeit slightly - when the Company announced its decision to close the circulation department in July 2009," he wrote. In any case, he said, El Vocero failed to meet its obligation to bargain with UPAGRA and provide related financial information.
• A federal judge in St. Louis has ruled that Post-Dispatch retiree medical benefits are a vested right and that the company must arbitrate, as the Guild argued in a grievance filed a year ago. Backed by a notorious union-busting law firm, the newspaper is trying to wiggle out of its agreement to pay lifetime medical insurance premiums for retirees. "This isn't over, we know that," Local 36047 Business Representative Shannon Duffy said. "But we're going to keep fighting until we win this thing for once and for all.