National Newsletter  November 7,2003

                               

 

CWAers Around Nation Organize 500
Recent organizing victories in three districts brought CWA representation to 500 new members

The largest group of about 160 joined Local 1032, which won two elections conducted by the New Jersey Public Employee Relations Commission at the Passaic Valley Water Commission for members of an independent union who were dissatisfied with the service they were receiving.
"We had been recommended to the workers by the Passaic County Central Labor Council," said Local Organizer Mario Rivera. Non-supervisory workers' contracts had expired last December. They complained the independent union had been ineffective in bargaining, left numerous grievances unattended and failed to enforce civil service decisions.

Members of the supervisory unit, who bargain next year, also wanted stronger representation, Rivera said. Rivera and local Organizer Migdalia Santiago met with workers in both groups, and Local President Jim Marketti invited them to a general membership meeting to see how the local operated

The vote on Oct. 26 among the supervisors was 22 for CWA 1 for no union and 3 for the independent. The non-supervisory workers chose CWA by a vote of 73-1-20.

 Also in New Jersey, Local 1034 Organizers Tim Dubnau and Alysia Welch helped a committee of about 25 workers win three elections for a total of 105 employees of the Atlantic City Housing Authority.

Julia Kelly, an affirmative action officer for the city, contacted the local early in the Summer. A former state employee and Local 1034 member, Kelly "knew the difference between working union and working nonunion," Dubnau said. She and organizing committee leader Louis Bishop brought together co-workers for meetings with the organizers both at their worksite and after work.

The employer held up the elections for months, Dubnau said, claiming that about 50 of the workers were management. They withdrew their objections soon after Local 1034 held a rally Sept. 25 right outside the Housing Authority's board meeting.

The vote count Oct. 30 for among 17 higher-level supervisors was 9-2 for CWA, with two challenges; 22 first-level supervisors, 12-5; and 67 non-supervisory workers, 51-6.

In New York, Local 1180 won voluntary recognition for 35 employees of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, reported Ed Sabol, administrative assistant to District 1 Vice President Larry Mancino. The local obtained 34 signatures on a petition they presented to management, said local Organizer Chris Aiken. The unit includes program Assistants, researchers, attorneys and administrative staff in New York and Washington, D.C.

CWA Representative Linda Rasmussen reported an election victory for 65 workers at Century Telephone in Oregon, who previously belonged to an independent union. "Congratulations to Ken Saether, president of Local 7906, for his efforts," she said.

In Richmond, Va., 45 technicians at AFL-QCS who voted for CWA representation 18 months ago finally obtained recognition. The workers perform power-up of equipment in central offices, said District 2 Organizing Coordinator Ron Collins.

 Prior to the election in May 2002, there was a National Labor Relations Board hearing," Collins said. "The board ruled with CWA on the bargaining unit, and the company appealed the decision of the regional director. The board impounded the ballots at that time, pending the results of the appeal"

The vote count on Oct. 31 was 23-12 for CWA. Collins credited Local 2201 and local Organizer Laurie RaBorg for their work on the campaign.

CWA Presses Federal Prosecution in Air Rage Case
CWA has been fighting for real protections against passenger "air rage" for 6,000 US Airways customer service agents and now is citing the Nov. 1 assault on a gate agent in Charlotte, N.C. - the fifth serious incident at the Charlotte airport in six months.

The most recent Charlotte incident involved an inbound passenger flying from St. Martin. Agents at the gate heard the passenger cursing and knocking over a trash receptacle as he came up the concourse. When the gate agent called for security assistance, the passenger rushed behind the podium and tried to punch the agent. The passenger then grabbed the agent and slammed him into the podium, breaking two of the agent's ribs, reported James Root, president of CWA Local 3641 in Charlotte

Airport authority management and security were reluctant to take any action against the passenger, forcing the agent to go to the local magistrate's Charlotte office to swear out an arrest warrant, Root reported.

 CWA is urging the federal prosecutor for the Charlotte district to have this latest assault case prosecuted under the federal law banning attacks on agents. "This law is about two years old, and prosecutors have not yet used it. We believe that federal prosecution of this case is necessary. At the same time, we're proposing an information program to make clear to passengers that assaults on agents can result in fines and up to 10 years' imprisonment. That's the only way to make certain that the public will take these assaults seriously and to lower the number of incidents that are occurring," said Root.

The "rules of engagement" that determine police intervention must be reviewed to make sure airport police respond promptly and properly, Root added. "Agents here in Charlotte were stunned to find out that the airport police would not arrest the passenger involved in this incident," he said.

The problem is growing, CWA members say. A survey conducted for CWA by Lauer Research Inc. in October found that 49 percent of agents had seen or experienced an airport rage incident in the past six months.

CWA is continuing to meet with US Airways management to work on the air rage problem along with other issues affecting passenger service agents. The union has called on the airline to take air rage seriously and to put in place a system-wide program including public education about the federal law and its consequences as well as better training of managers on how to step in and respond to air rage incidents.

Montreal Guild Wins Byline Fight
Members of the Montreal Newspaper Guild-CWA won a major victory with the recent decision of a Quebec arbitrator that newspaper workers, not local management or corporate executives, have the absolute right to control the use of their bylines and credit lines.

Union reporters, photographers and other workers at the Montreal Gazette sought to withhold their bylines for two days in December 2001, to protest a move by CanWest Global, the paper's owner, to run identical "national editorials" in more than a dozen CanWest publications at least three times a week.

The Gazette workers wanted to protest the owner's drive to centralize opinion, reduce public debate and serve narrow corporate interests, said TNG-CWA Local 30111. The local represents 297 Gazette employees. Byline strikes have long been an effective tactic by Guild members.

Ordered by the local editor in chief to restore their bylines, Guild members filed a grievance that was upheld by Arbitrator Jean-Pierre Lussier. Jan Ravensbergen, first vice president of the Montreal Guild, said the ruling was important because it "effectively shields our members from ownership retribution for protest against CanWest Global policies. This is of particular importance now that the Senate of Canada has launched an in-depth examination of media ownership and control issues."

Huge Union Turnout Expected for FTAA Meetings in Miami
CWA members will be among thousands of union activists joining a coalition of international, community and environmental allies who will call for fair rules for the global economy during the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) talks Nov. 19-21 in Miami.

The groups will hold marches, rallies, a workers' forum and cultural events in support of Workers' rights and good jobs around the globe.

AFL-CIO officers will call on trade ministers gathered in Miami to ensure workers' rights and needs globally are taken into account when negotiating FTAA, a plan to extend NAFTA to all of the countries of the Western Hemisphere except Cuba.

On Nov. 18, AFL-CIO Executive Vice-President Linda Chavez-Thompson will preside at the Hemispheric Labor and Parliamentarian Forum at the Gusman Center for Performing Arts in Miami. Labor leaders from throughout the Americas will attend.

On Nov. 19, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will give the keynote address at the AFL- CIO Workers' Forum, the first such public dialogue among workers from around the Americas about their concerns surrounding the FTAA. Chavez-Thompson will moderate the forum panel. Workers will discuss how NAFTA's promise to create jobs in the United States, Canada and Mexico has failed, instead causing record job loss, lower wages and weaker environmental and labor protections.

 For a full calendar of events and more information about how union members across the country can get involved, see these websites: www.aflcio.org/stopftaa and yvww.marchtomiami.org.

 CLUW Urging Locals to Recognize World AIDS Day
"Live and Let Live," is the slogan for the 2003 World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women is calling on union members and locals throughout the country to take part.

"Although there have been many advances in the war against HIV/AIDS, stigma and discrimination continue to be major obstacles to effective prevention and care, and are experienced by workers affected by this disease every day," CLUW said.

Worldwide, more than 38 million adults and 32 million children are living with HIV and 5 million people are infected every year. An estimated 850,000 to 950,000 Americans are infected and about 25 percent don't know it. Last year, the number of new AIDS cases in the United States increased for the first time since 1993, up by about 900 to 42,136.

CLUW has prepared a World AIDS Day tool kit to help locals and members get started on activities. The kit includes a sample proclamation, newsletter articles, and a sample letter to the editor, a news release and other materials. For more information, see the CLUW website at  www.cluw.org.  For a copy of the kit or other help with World AIDS Day Projects, contact HIV/AIDS Program Director Karen McMillan at (202) 223-8360, ext. 7, or e-mail her at kmcmillan@cluw.org.

 

IN BRIEF:

     Members of WashTech, the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers,   CWA Local   37083, and other labor supporters picketed Oct. 27 outside a Boston hotel where the Forrester Group was holding a seminar for executives on how to offshore jobs. This was the second protest in Boston this year; union workers also had picketed at a conference on IT  outsourcing in June.

 CWA has been raising concerns about the growing transfer of high tech and other  information technology jobs to India, China, Southeast Asia and other regions.           

        Even with Democratic presidential candidates talking about many critical working family issues,
        the media is largely ignoring them, group members said. Their mission is to package research
        and proposals for change in ways that are more likely to draw coverage.

         Read more about the coalition, called Take Care Net, at www.takecarenet.org.

 

     The initiative, passed by 53 percent of voters, also prevents the state from further trying
     to  regulate workplace ergonomics unless a federal standard is adopted. The rule was already a
     watered-down version of what unions and health and safety advocates sought to protect workers,
     but it was considered a good first step. Labor leaders said the business community used "scare 
     tactics" to kill the measure.