CWA Local 9510's News Blog

Omaha TV Techs Battle Hearst for a Fair Contract
NABET-CWA members in Omaha use bus bench ads in the fight for a fair contract at KETV Channel 7.

NABET-CWA technicians at Omaha's KETV Channel 7 are fighting for a fair contract that prevents the Hearst-owned station from unilaterally turning full-time jobs into part-time work.
Three years ago, when the last contract was negotiated, the bargaining unit had 17 full-time and five part-time technicians. Since then, six full-timers have lost their jobs and the number of part-timers has more than doubled.
Management is attacking job security provisions negotiated in the last contract and wants to limit NABET-CWA's jurisdiction over existing work.
The KETV workers, who just merged their Omaha local with Local 54041 in Chicago, are wearing red shirts to show solidarity. A website, www.7canthelp.tv, and bus bench ads are making sure that the public gets the message.
The unit bargained this week with a federal mediator and more sessions are schedule in late August.
Boarman Nomination as Public Printer Cleared for Senate Action
The nomination of William Boarman, president of CWA's Printing, Publishing & Media Workers Sector, to become the nation's next Public Printer was approved by the Senate Rules Committee and sent to the full Senate.
Upon confirmation by the Senate, Boarman would serve as the chief executive officer of the Government Printing Office, which publishes thousands of documents every year for the federal government.
Boarman was nominated by President Obama in April but his nomination has been slowed because of the Senate's broken procedures. Filibusters by Republican leaders and secret holds by anonymous senators attached to nominees at every level have virtually brought the process to a halt. Usually, all but the highest level of presidential nominees have been confirmed by unanimous consent in the Senate, but unanimous consent is nearly impossible in this Congress and an objection by a single senator requires a cloture vote to cut off debate.
CWA President Larry Cohen said CWA's legislative staff worked hard to get the nomination cleared by the Senate Rules committee. "We celebrate not only the vote for Bill, but our growing legislative and political clout and work," he said.
New Report Looks at Union-Building and Young Activists
A new report by the Berger-Marks Foundation offers a "top ten list" to help unions attract and keep a new generation of workers, especially women members.
"Stepping Up, Stepping Back: Women 'Talk Union' Across Generations" provides some very specific suggestions to help increase activism and leadership among young workers, especially women. Download the report here.
The report is based on discussion among 30 women leaders who attended a "summit" in New Orleans; they came from more than 20 different unions and other organizations.
Recommendations included more training programs so that young workers can learn how to 'talk union' with their peers, eradicating sexual harassment and sexism, and more decision-making involvement and opportunity for young activists.
The Berger-Marks Foundation was established with a bequest from the estates of Edna Berger, the first female lead organizer for The Newspaper Guild-CWA, and her husband, the legendary Tin Pan Alley song-writer Gerald Marks. It seeks to bring the benefits of unionization to working women and to assist organizations committed to those principles.
Go to www.bergermarks.org for more information.

* GOP House Members Press Deutsche Telekom on Workers' Rights in U.S.

* NABET-CWA Members Stand Firm as Contract Fight Heads to Mediation

* Sign Up Now for CWA's Civil Rights and Equity Conference

* Biggest Ever COPE Contest Underway

* West Virginia CWA Members Honor Byrd in Memorial Procession

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GOP House Members Press Deutsche Telekom on Workers' Rights in U.S.
Seven Republican members of Congress have signed a letter to Deutsche Telekom chief executive officer Rene Olbermann calling on the company to "follow the same, fair policies at your U.S. subsidiary as at Deutsche Telekom" with regard to workers' rights to decide for themselves, free from management interference, whether they want to organize and bargain collectively.

The letter expressed concern that DT's approach to employees at its American subsidiary does not place an equal value on respect for workers' rights. "We believe that respecting those rights is one important step in ensuring that economic recovery is fair and sustainable," they wrote.
The signers are Steven LaTourette, R-14th, Ohio; Candice S. Miller, R-10th, Mich.; Frank Lo Biondo, R-2nd, N.J.; Patrick Tiberi, R-12th, Ohio; Thadeus McCotter, R-11th, Mich.; Christopher Smith, R-4th, N.J.; and Tim Murphy, R-18th, Pa.

The letter is similar to one sent to Olbermann in May by 24 Democratic members of the House Education and Labor Committee.

NABET-CWA Members Stand Firm as Contract Fight Heads to Mediation

Kenny Distance, a member of the NABET-CWA bargaining team at PBS, grills hot dogs for his colleagues outside the network's facilities in Springfield, Va.

NABET-CWA has been in tough bargaining with PBS, the nation's public broadcasting network, for a new contract covering some 50 technicians, editors and satellite workers, members of Local 52031. The previous contract expired at the end of June.

NABET-CWA members have been mobilizing and that show of solidarity, including red shirt days and "hot dog Wednesdays" caused the network's chief negotiator to walk away from bargaining. Negotiations will resume July 13 with a federal mediator.

Management demands include changes in shift selection, job titles and cuts in pay differentials. The network says it won't raise wages this year and is offering just 1 percent next year and 2 percent in 2012.

Sign Up Now for CWA's Civil Rights and Equity Conference

CWA's National Committee on Equity has put together a special program for this year's civil rights and equity conference in New Orleans.

The three day meeting will include hands-on sessions on how to build local civil rights and equity committees, a status report on coalition building with national groups like the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the NAACP, and discussion around key civil rights issues for CWAers.
It also will focus on the hardships still facing victims of Hurricane Katrina and how CWAers have been working to help restore this community.

The conference will be held at the Loews New Orleans Hotel, beginning Friday evening, Sept. 24 through Sunday Sept. 26. For registration and hotel information, go here.

Biggest Ever COPE Contest Underway

CWA's COPE contest is really taking off. Just since May, when the contest began, there's been an increase of $30,244 for COPE, from new contributors or increased contributions. So far, District 6 is leading the contest with the most cards.

Every District and Sector that meets the minimum quota for a 5 percent increase in giving will hold a drawing among those CWA members who have signed up or increased their COPE contributions. Districts or sectors that don't reach the 5 percent mark will hold a combined drawing. CWA will award up to eight top prizes of a trip for two to Las Vegas, including airfare and two nights' hotel accommodation.

Any CWAer who becomes a new contributor or increases her or his weekly contributions by $1 will get a COPE t-shirt.
The contest runs until October and the winners will be announced on Election Day, Nov. 2.

West Virginia CWA Members Honor Byrd in Memorial Procession

CWA members in Charleston, W.Va., join a memorial tribute to Senator Robert Byrd.

Scores of red-shirted CWA members honored the life of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd on July 2, joining a somber march behind a horse-drawn caisson that ended at a memorial service at Charleston's statehouse.
Byrd, who cared deeply about workers and the struggles of working families, died at age 92, after serving a record 51 years in the U.S. Senate. In addition to CWA members and other trade unionists, President Obama, Vice President Biden, President Bill Clinton and elected officials from both parties attended the memorial service to remember Byrd.
Senator Edward Kennedy's widow, Victoria, spoke, recalling the moment last Christmas Eve when Byrd made his way to the Senate floor to vote for health care reform. "I was in the gallery, and tears flowed down my cheeks when he said, 'Mr. President, this is for my friend, Ted Kennedy,'" she said.

A CWA Local 1126 member who was shot while working at an AT&T Wireless store in central New York will be honored at the CWA convention, along with the off-duty police officer who killed the gunman before he could hurt anyone else.
The shooting and the events leading to it are a textbook argument for more retail store security and worker training.
The victim, Seth Turk, is out of the hospital but has a long road to full recovery. He was one of four CWA members and six workers total named on a "hit list" carried by gunman Abraham Dickan, 79, a meddlesome, almost daily visitor to the New York Mills store. A month earlier, Dickan brandished a gun to another CWA member there. AT&T sent him a letter banning him from the store, but no changes were made in security.
On May 27, after the county seized the weapon and revoked his carry permit in response to the earlier incident, Dickan returned, pulled a .357 caliber revolver and shot Turk in the stomach. Nearby in a short line of customers, off-duty Police Officer Donald Moore swiftly pulled his gun and fatally shot Dickan. No one else was injured.
In spite of his grave injury, Turk, 37, managed to call 911 and calmly provide details. "He was even able to tell them about Officer Moore having a weapon so they didn't come in thinking he was possibly the assailant," Local 1126 Vice President Jason White said. "The police said it was a textbook 911 call."
White praised AT&T for its efforts since the shooting, which include re-opening the store at a new site with multiple video cameras, panic buttons and, for now, a constant police presence. But he is concerned about long-term safety for his members and all CWA retail workers nationwide. "We definitely need to establish a protocol, jointly with the company, that workers can follow if they ever feel threatened by a customer," he said.

The death of Robert Byrd on Monday was the end of an era in West Virginia, where the country's longest-serving senator was a hero to CWA members and workers across the state who knew he was always in their corner.
He loved CWA, as many of the things he believed in and fought for are the very same things that are important to us," said CWA District 2 Representative Elaine Harris, whose many memories of Byrd include his stand for workers when AT&T tried to close its Charleston call center in 1994. At least some of the 500 jobs were going to be sent overseas.
"He had a meeting with Bob Allen, the AT&T CEO, and he scolded him, he said, 'How dare you take the jobs away from the people in my state!'" Harris said. AT&T backed down.
Although the center ultimately was closed in 2004, "because of Senator Byrd, we had those jobs for 10 years longer than we would have," Harris said.
In another show of support, Byrd wrote to Verizon Wireless CEO Ivan Seidenberg in 2005 to inquire, in his typically polite fashion about "concerns that Verizon Wireless is infringing upon the collective bargaining rights of its employees."
Through his five decades in the Senate, he fought tirelessly for workers' jobs, rights and safety, championing laws to protect miners, opposing job-killing trade deals and, as majority leader in the 1970s, battling a Republican filibuster of labor law reform.
"He was a giant in West Virginia, as a senator and as a friend to so many of us," Harris said, recalling the letter and poem Byrd sent her when her father died. On Wednesday, her office had lunch delivered to Byrd's grieving staff. Tonight, CWA members in red shirts will march in a procession through Charleston as Byrd's body is carried to the state capitol for a memorial. "Everybody here was touched by him," she said.

In rejecting the airline industry's challenge to new, democratic rules governing representation elections for airline and railroad workers, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman said the National Mediation Board was fully within its rights to change the rules, and that the agency demonstrated "that the change is essential."
As a result of the June 25 decision, the new rules went into effect Wednesday, June 30, opening the door to fair elections for tens of thousands of unrepresented airline workers at Delta Northwest, Piedmont, Fedex and other carriers.
Under the changes supported by AFA-CWA, the outcome of union representation elections will be based on a majority of the votes cast. Until now, workers who didn't cast ballots were counted as "No" votes. During elections, airlines frequently packed employee eligibility lists with furloughed workers to increase the number of non-voters.
AFA-CWA President Patricia Friend applauded the decision. "Democracy has prevailed and we gladly usher in a new era where aviation and railway employees have a voice," she said, adding "For the first time in recent history, elections conducted by the NMB will be held to the standards and principles that our country was founded upon."
Based on thousands of comments the NMB received on the rule change from airline workers, unions, and the industry, the judge said the Board provided "evidence and analysis of why the new rule will better determine employees' preference regarding representation."
Friedman also rejected industry claims that the NMB acted beyond its authority and in violation of the Railway Labor Act, stating that the new rule "is consistent with the Board's broad discretion to investigate representational disputes and to decide how a majority of a craft or class shall exercise its right to determine a representative under the RLA."
The Air Transport Association, which sought to block the rule on behalf of Delta Air Lines and at least nine other carriers, and with the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said it "will thoroughly study the decision to determine" whether it would appeal the ruling.

Delta flight attendants today moved closer to holding the first truly democratic election at the airline as the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA filed with the National Mediation Board to trigger a union representation election.
AFA-CWA asked the NMB to declare that the airline is a single transportation system as a result of the Delta/Northwest merger, thus paving the way for an election. Northwest Airlines flight attendants are currently represented by AFA-CWA, while Delta flight attendants are not represented. With nearly 21,000 flight attendants at the combined airline, the election will be among the largest ever conducted in the airlines.
"Delta and Northwest flight attendants have waited a long time for this day and are eager to move forward in creating a world-class contract at the world's largest carrier," stated AFA-CWA President Patricia Friend.