CWA bargaining teams were trading proposals with Verizon management as negotiations moved closer to the Aug. 2 contract expiration.
Union bargaining teams reported that they told management that CWA negotiators
were ready to meet during weekends to work out a fair settlement, but to date,
the company has expressed no interest in stepping up the bargaining pace.
The company continues to demand the removal of the contract language that
restored the jobs of 3,400 workers that Verizon laid off last December; the
ability to transfer thousands of jobs out of Verizon East territory; health care
cost shifting for active and retired workers; and givebacks in the protections
against excessive forced overtime CWA won in the 2000 talks.
CWA members demonstrated their support for CWA and IBEW bargaining teams in
mobilization actions and rallies throughout Verizon East territory. Among the
activities:
CWA and IBEW members in New England had an informational picket line outside the
home of Verizon's Massachusetts-Rhode Island president, Donna Cupelo. Activists
protested Verizon's multi-million-dollar ad campaign, which used actors in a
phony diner setting and distorted workers' salaries.
CWA's advertising campaign continued to focus on the real conditions faced by
real workers, especially the threat to their jobs under Verizon's demands to
transfer thousands of jobs outside Verizon East territory and to lay off
workers. In print and radio ads that appeared in cities from Maine to Virginia,
CWA reminded the public that Verizon made $4 billion in profits last year but
was threatening to move thousands of jobs out of local communities. The ads
featured CWA District 1 members Tim Pasparakis, Melinda Smith and David
DiBartolomeo.
CWA bargainers at Verizon North Carolina have filed three unfair labor practice
charges against the company as Verizon continues to stall contract talks in the
more than two-month-long strike.
Verizon has refused to provide the union with requested information concerning
two of its bargaining demands—to eliminate serious family illness leave and cut
workers' short term disability benefits, CWA said in charges presented to the
National Labor Relations Board. Verizon also violated labor law by bypassing the
union and contacting members directly while bargaining continued and threatening
the job of a bargaining committee member.
Talks have recessed over the company's refusal to provide the requested
information, said CWA Representative Betty Witte, who will meet next week with
the labor board over the charges. Verizon's charge of surface bargaining against
CWA doesn't hold up, Witte said, because it is Verizon that has demanded
substantial changes in the illness and sick leave benefit without providing the
data the union needs to analyze the demand.
Meanwhile, members of Local 3673 took a break from picket and strike duties to
complete a handicapped access ramp at the softball field in Franklin, N.C.
As lawmakers on Tuesday questioned whether the government's $750 million fine is sufficient punishment for WorldCom in the largest-ever, fraud-induced corporate bankruptcy, CWA President Morton Bahr and Verizon Executive Vice President William Barr laid out a strong case that tougher measures are required to ensure that the surviving company—to be renamed MCI—does not come out of bankruptcy healthier than its innocent competitors.
"WorldCom's lies and false financial reports destabilized the entire
telecommunications industry. Tens of thousands of employees—not only at WorldCom
but throughout the telecom sector—lost their jobs and retirement savings," Bahr
told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a public oversight hearing.
"Yet, WorldCom is positioned to emerge from bankruptcy with the strongest
balance sheet in the telecommunications industry," he continued. "This will
cause further destabilization and job loss in the struggling telecom sector, and
send a message to corporate America that crime pays."
Subject to the approval of a bankruptcy judge, WorldCom settled its $11 billion
fraud case with the Securities and Exchange Commission by agreeing to pay the
fine. The company is expected to discharge all but $5.5 billion of its $40
billion debt through bankruptcy.
Bahr submitted 27 pages of documentation in support of his testimony, including
letters from numerous CWA local presidents representing AT&T employees who lost
their jobs as that company laid off 18,000 non-management employees to compete
with WorldCom's cost structure.
He told the heartbreaking story of Clarissa Davilla, a 32-year-old mother of
three who lost her job when AT&T closed a 500-person bilingual call center in
San Antonio, Texas. She was a cancer patient in remission, and lost her health
benefits. Another member in San Antonio lost her job and health benefits while
awaiting a heart transplant for her husband. One member from New York City saved
his job when the company cut 400 positions there by accepting a transfer to a
location two hours away. He died suddenly from a heart attack. Bahr said the
member's wife blamed it on the strain of his commute.
"Other CWA-represented telecom companies eliminated an additional 55,000
frontline jobs. Altogether, more than 172,000 jobs have been cut in the telecom
sector in the past two years," Bahr pointed out.
Job losses due to WorldCom's unscrupulous business practices, documented by
bankruptcy examiner Richard Thornburgh, have also rippled throughout the public
sector. States have cut employees to make up for financial losses experienced by
public pension funds and jointly administered Taft Hartley funds invested in the
company. Bahr gave as examples California, which lost $1.2 billion; New York,
$393 million; Texas, $277 million and Utah, $23 million.
He pointed out that, where the General Services Administration cancelled all
contracting with accounting firm Arthur Anderson and energy giant Enron in the
wake of those corporate scandals, the government has rewarded WorldCom with a
$45 million contract to build a wireless network in Iraq.
Barr, who is general counsel for Verizon and a former U.S. Attorney General,
joined Bahr in calling for criminal prosecution of WorldCom. "What MCI's
competitors want—and what the American public wants—is justice," he said.
"Honest competition is good for shareholders, for employees, and for consumers.
Dishonest competition—competition where the government places its thumb on the
scale by giving affirmative advantages to corporate criminals—kills investment,
kills jobs, and kills economic growth. More importantly it undermines the rule
of law, which is the cornerstone of our freedom and prosperity."
Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Edward Kennedy
(D-Mass.) all expressed dismay at the SEC settlement. Durbin, referring to
WorldCom, said, "It appears that they have done quite well. It appears their
approach is, 'Everybody has a bad day.'"
IUE-CWA Local 82162 Strikes ITT Night Vision
Mass rallies of more than 300 workers every Monday in a strongly supported, month-old strike, and the company still doesn't get it. IUE-CWA Local 82162 members who struck ITT Night Vision in Roanoke, Va., June 21, rejecting management's proposal for a new contract, are looking for serious movement from the company on forced overtime, health care cost-shifting and pension caps.
About 150 of 580 members in select departments have worked heavy overtime with
little complaint since Sept. 11, 2001, helping supply America's military, police
and border patrol with night vision goggles and related equipment essential to
national security and in the war in Iraq. One member, Dale Johnson, told the
Roanoke Times that she had only one weekend off in three months and missed her
husband and five children.
"Now our people are fed up," said Local President Lee Dillon. "They don't have
time to go to a party or a wedding, eat supper with their families or go to a
ball game. You have people with kids 5 years old and the next thing you know,
they're 7, and where are you?"
Dillon is also concerned that with management employees filling in for the
strikers, nonstandard products could reach the military. "I don't know that
could happen, and I hope the government inspectors in the plant would prevent
it, but big business is about making money. I think families that have people
stationed overseas deserve to know that."
The workers voted overwhelmingly to strike when their contract expired at
midnight June 20. Since then, they've maintained a daily presence on the picket
line, with strong support from the community and from other unions.
Dillon said Steelworkers, Postal Workers, Teamsters and other union members have
walked the picket lines. Members of IUE-CWA locals representing GE workers also
have turned out, as have CWA telephone members. "One day we had a caravan of
Verizon trucks go by blowing their horns and giving us the high-five."
Members of the public and local business owners have delivered food and water to
the strike line, and the Roanoke United Central Labor Council has contributed to
the local's strike fund.
Beyond the overtime issue, members are concerned about erosion of their
benefits. Dillon said that, under the old contract, members' contributions to
health care premiums were capped at 18 percent and also by a dollar cap, with
annual premium increases fairly apportioned. Now the company wants to raise
premiums and copays and remove the caps. "Health care increases could more than
eat up any raises our people might get," Dillon said.
Also, he said, the company's insistence on maintaining a 40-years-of-service cap
on pension increases would hurt older, long-term employees.
"The local has made reasonable movement toward addressing some of the company's
issues, and even with that we've still not been able to reach agreement," Dillon
said.
The parties last met on July 10. Though they agreed to continue bargaining, no
new dates have been set.
Gerald A. Belanger, a retired CWA Representative in District 2, died in his sleep June 29 of a ruptured aneurysm on his brain. He was 60.
Belanger, a former president of Local 2108 in Landover, Md., joined the staff in
September 1981. He serviced numerous locals throughout District 2, representing
members at AT&T, C&P Telephone and other CWA employers.
"Jerry lived and died union. He truly was a union believer," said his brother,
Robert, also a former Local 2108 president.
Lynette Snell, a District 2 organizer and former vice president of the local,
remembered his kindness when she became a new steward in 1974. "Jerry was my
mentor," she said. "He encouraged me to grow and develop as a union leader."
Belanger went to work for C&P Telephone in April 1964 as a central office
technician and became active in Local 2108. He served as a steward and chief
steward, education committee chairman, executive vice president and finally as
full-time president. As a local officer he participated in organizing campaigns
at Atlantic Telephone and Vitro and bargained for members at General Dynamics.
He also lobbied on safety and health issues and edited the local's newsletter.
His first staff assignment in 1981 was in Richmond, Va. In February 1984 he
transferred to the District 2 office in Washington, D.C. and two years later was
reassigned to Timonium, Md. In June of that year he returned to Washington. He
worked out of the Charleston, W.Va., office from March 1988 until February 1992,
when he resigned to return to his job at the phone company.
Belanger is survived by his brother, of Myrtle Beach, S.C.; two sisters, Suzanne
Chroniger of Gettysburg, Pa., and Marie Pickard of Alexandria, Va.; a son,
Gerald, of Annapolis, Md.; three daughters, Lisa Gibbs of Lothian, Md., and
Collette Bivens and Jeanine VanWormer of Lusby, Md., and three grandsons.
The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers-CWA and Alliance@IBM are spotlighting attention on IBM Corp.'s plans to move even more high tech jobs overseas.
IBM plans to send more U.S. software and tech jobs to India and China and
has been outlining its plans to company managers, WashTech charged.
A presentation by Tom Lynch, IBM's Director of Global Employees Relations,
to IBM managers, indicated that current IBM employees will "train their
replacements" with jobs in engineering, software development and chip
development among those likely to be shipped offshore.
Lynch also made reference to WashTech and the Alliance, noting "you can see
some fairly appealing arguments they are making as to why employees need to
do something like organize to fight this."
Alliance@IBM will hold meetings at IBM facilities nationwide to give
employees the opportunity to see the company's presentation.
All Democrats currently running for the presidential nomination have
agreed to take part in a televised AFL-CIO forum Aug. 5 in Chicago that will
focus on working family issues. The event will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
C-SPAN plans live coverage.
At the federation's request, the candidates have responded to a detailed
questionnaire about issues such as jobs, health care, retirement security,
education, corporate accountability, a strong and secure America, civil and
human rights and the freedom of workers to form unions. You can read their
responses at
www.aflcio.org/candidates2004.