|
United Flight Attendants Ratify New Contract |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written by admin
|
|
Saturday, 03 March 2012 06:08 |
|
A new contract covering 15,000 pre-merger Flight Attendants at United Airlines was ratified this week with a 70 percent approval margin. The agreement, reached in January, includes significant quality of work life enhancements, new job security protections, scheduling and compensation improvements, including an immediate ten percent wage increase and distribution of a $5,000 signing bonus.
"This agreement is good for Flight Attendants and good for the company. It addresses many immediate needs identified by United Flight Attendants and serves as a stepping-stone to single contract negotiations with our flying partners from Continental and Continental Micronesia," said Greg Davidowitch, president of AFA at United Airlines.
Above: Local 1298 members demonstrate in New Haven, Conn., for AT&T East contract.
Below: Members of CWA Local 9586 rally for new contract at AT&T West.
CWA bargaining teams began separate negotiations with AT&T Midwest, AT&T West, AT&T Legacy and AT&T East on Feb. 29. For links to the individual district bargaining updates and mobilization news, click here.
AT&T Midwest Negotiations
Negotiations with AT&T Midwest opened in Hoffman Estates, Ill., outside Chicago, with the bargaining team escorted to the talks by a caravan of local leaders from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Check out this video.
CWA D4 Vice President Seth Rosen opened the negotiations, stressing that "perhaps the most important question is: will AT&T work with CWA and its members as it develops strategies to meet a changing competitive and technological environment, or will it take the low road of layoffs, cost shifting, and outsourcing?" D4 represents 15,000 workers at AT&T Midwest.
AT&T West Negotiations
In California, CWA members mobilized in Pasadena, San Ramon and Sacramento, holding rallies at lunchtime and after work to stand up for a fair contract at AT&T West. CWA D9 Vice President Jim Weitkamp said for workers at AT&T West, expanding hometown, quality jobs and stopping the outsourcing of work are critical issues, along with countering the attempt by a very profitable company to shift more health care costs to workers and their families, and the inequitable working conditions imposed on some technicians. D9 represents 18,000 workers at AT&T West.
AT&T Legacy Negotiations
In Atlanta, members of CWA Local 3250 hold informational picket for contract at AT&T Legacy.
AT&T Legacy bargaining began in Washington, D.C., led by CWA Telecommunications/Technologies Vice President Ralph Maly. Lois Grimes-Paltrow, CWA bargaining team co-chair, said critical issues include reducing outsourcing and offshoring of jobs, elimination of unfair working conditions and unrealistic work rules, and commission-based pay plans. T/T represents 6,000 workers at AT&T Legacy.
AT&T East Negotiations
In New Haven, Conn., CWA D1 Vice President Chris Shelton opened bargaining for two contracts, covering workers at the core company and the yellow pages unit, as members rallied in New Haven. D1 and CWA Local 1298 represent 4,000 workers at AT&T East.
AT&T is the largest and most profitable company in the communications industry. In 2010, AT&T recorded profits of $19.86 billion on revenues of $124 billion. For the twelve months ending September 30, 2011, AT&T recorded profits of $11.71 billion on revenues of $126 billion.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Minnesota TakeAction Takes on the 1 Percent on Voter Suppression |
|
|
|
|
Written by admin
|
|
Thursday, 16 February 2012 17:27 |
|
More than 400 activists demonstrate at the Minnesota state capitol against a strict voter ID ballot initiative.
More than 400 activists, including CWAers, rallied at the Minnesota state capitol to protest efforts to adopt a strict voter ID law in the state.
The demonstration was organized by TakeAction Minnesota, a coalition of labor, environmental and disability groups, who stress that business and financial organizations are bankrolling Republican legislators as part of an effort to require all voters to show photo ID at the polls.
Activists walked around the legislative chambers wearing hundred-dollar-bill stickers across their mouths, to symbolize how the 1 percent wants to silence the voices of ordinary Americans.
CWA President Larry Cohen addressed TakeAction Minnesota activists during the week of actions that ended at the state capitol.
The Republican-controlled legislature has introduced a state-issued photo ID requirement as a proposed amendment to the state's constitution that would be placed on the ballot in November.
Dan McGrath, executive director of TakeAction Minnesota, said "the proposed photo ID amendment will make it harder if not impossible for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who are eligible to vote, to cast their ballot.'' The ID requirement, by making it harder for elderly, poor and disabled people to vote, is part of an effort to keep power and wealth concentrated within the 1 percent and make public institutions less accountable to voters.
In another event, more than a dozen religious leaders delivered a letter signed by hundreds of clergy members to legislators, in opposition to the voter ID requirement.
"We believe that democracy at its best engages participation from the most diverse and gifted gathering of God's whole people," the letter reads. "The proposed voter ID referendum in Minnesota seeks to reduce the number of people who participate in our democracy."
Read TakeAction Minnesota's report here. http://www.takeactionminnesota.org/_assets/document/1vsDemocracy.pdf
On a house call, AT&T Premise Tech Andrel Reid saved the life of this 4-month old baby girl.
AT&T Premise Technician Andrel Reid has been on the job for just six months, but he will always remember his Feb. 1 visit to the Lansing, Mich., home of customer Christine Duffy. The Local 4034 member was dispatched to fix Duffy's U-verse service, but he ended up saving the life of Duffy's four-month old baby girl.
Minutes after Reid arrived on the job, baby Sara was in serious trouble. "She was coughing. It just started blocking up her system and she just started choking on the congestion. Around her eyes it was getting all red and she started turning different colors," Duffy told local NBC affiliate WILX.
Reid stepped in to help. "I put the baby in a position that I was taught in training, put the baby in my palm, flipped her over and gave her a light thrust to her back. That's when everything came up, and the baby actually started laughing and smiling at me," he told a local TV news reporter.
Reid, who gets CPR-certified as part of his training, was happy he could help, but probably doesn't consider himself to be a hero. "We're in people's homes all day. . . Stuff happens and we're the only ones there," he said. Click here to view the news report. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=46310208
CWA District 4 Vice President Seth Rosen said "what makes this act of heroism even more amazing is the pressure our prem techs are under to meet arbitrary performance standards. Especially now, as we are about to begin contract negotiations in a few weeks, we hope AT&T realizes the importance of its front line employees."
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
CWAers, Atlanta Activists Pull Off Stealth Action at AT&T |
|
|
|
|
Written by admin
|
|
Thursday, 23 February 2012 18:06 |
|
CWA Local 3204 activists, Occupy Atlanta and Jobs with Justice held a stealth action at AT&T headquarters in Atlanta, telling the company to stop layoffs and create good jobs.
 CWA Local 3204 activists, Occupy Atlanta and Jobs with Justice doubled up on the message that AT&T must stop layoffs and create good jobs in our communities.
A Valentine's Day rally to defend good jobs at AT&T was on everyone's radar screen, but activists had more plans in the works for the day before, Feb. 13. After months of planning, groups of protesters -- CWA retirees and JwJ and Occupy Atlanta activists -- were ready for a stealth action at AT&T's Atlanta headquarters.
CWA local 3204 President Walter Andrews said "the events were great, and gave everyone a lot of hope and inspiration that we're fighting back."
CWA Local 3204 Steward Ernest Talley reported:
"The first group entered the building one by one... and then proceeded to deliver our written demand, which was to immediately rescind the proposed 740 layoffs. They locked arms, sat down and refused to leave. This caught the company completely off guard. Management actually said, 'We weren't expecting you until the 14th.' While inside, activists notified local news stations and sang R&B love songs modified to focus attention on AT&T's corporate greed. This group did intend to be arrested.
"Meanwhile the second group gathered at a nearby homeless shelter, where they started a march carrying letters spelling out the message 'Expect Us.' About 70 people were walking down the middle of Peachtree St., with mid-day traffic honking horns behind them. When they finally arrived at AT&T's corporate offices, they marched straight to the doors. Just outside the building, they formed more messages, and a broken heart.
"While all this was happening, several vans pulled up with tents that had already been put together. We unloaded them, and in one clean swoop, the Occupation had begun. In a matter of minutes we had approximately 16 tents up, and about 50 more people from Occupy Atlanta joined the protest.
"It was perfectly executed by all parties involved. The next day, hundreds of workers came for our rally, in a show of solidarity and appreciation."
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Vote on FAA Reauthorization is Attack on Workers' Bargaining Rights |
|
|
|
|
Written by admin
|
|
Thursday, 09 February 2012 16:10 |
|
CWA's ad in Politico commends House and Senate Democrats who voted against legislation that destroys airline and railway workers' bargaining and organizing rights.
The 157 House and 15 Senate Democrats who voted no on the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization made it clear: democracy isn't a choice between jobs and workers' rights.
The bill passed both houses of Congress, however, and CWA immediately made clear that we will fight back and "we will remember those champions who stood with us this week."
A two-page ad in Politico, the Capitol Hill newspaper, made sure that members of Congress got the message.
"With this vote, House and Senate majorities caved in to the ideological agenda of Delta Air Lines and the 1 percent. This should have been a jobs bill, not the opportunity for an ideological assault by radical politicians. Workers shouldn't have to choose between jobs and their rights on the job," CWA said.
In the House, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, George Miller and other leaders fought back against the destruction of transportation workers' rights, with 155 Democratic colleagues, stood up for democracy. In the Senate 15 Democratic Senators rejected the measure that makes it even harder for workers to gain union representation.
Now, instead of 35 percent, more than a majority of workers must show support for a union to even trigger the start of the election process, and that list of union-eligible workers is generated by management. It's a particularly high threshold to meet when two airlines are merging and one carrier has union representation but the other does not.
Private sector union elections governed by the National Labor Relations Act require that 30 percent of workers show interest in a union to trigger an election.
This new majority plus standard to trigger an election was included in the law, but the rule that finally put a majority vote election standard in place -- where the outcome is determined by the majority of those voting, and not counting non-voters as no votes -- was not.
Over the past five years, Congress has been limping along, passing short-term extensions of the FAA Reauthorization, but not finalizing the funding bill. Republicans, driven by ideology, never stopped trying to overturn the rule change put in place in 2010 by the National Mediation Board, that instituted a majority vote election standard for union elections in transportation.
Republicans shut the FAA down at least twice, stopping critical airport construction projects and throwing thousands out of work, in an effort to strip out the democratic majority vote standard.
Over 400 AFA-CWA and union activists hold an OccuFLY demonstration at Los Angeles Intl. Airport to protest the attack on airline workers’ rights and corporate greed.
Chanting, "It's not just about first class, it's about the middle class," more than 400 AFA-CWA Flight Attendants from 20 airlines and activists from Los Angeles area unions turned out for an "OccuFLY" demonstration at Los Angeles International Airport this week.
AFA-CWA delegates attended the union's Board of Directors' meeting this week in Los Angeles in conjunction with the OccuFLY event. CWA President Larry Cohen, Secretary-Treasurer Annie Hill, and CWA District 9 Vice President Jim Weitkamp joined in the rally alongside Flight Attendants and other airline workers at LAX, plus activists from LA Union, the Los Angeles Federation of Labor; CWA; NABET-CWA; UNITEHERE; Teamsters and others.
Activists protested the attack on airline workers' collective bargaining rights inserted in the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization and passed by the House and Senate over the strong objection of CWA, AFA-CWA and 17 other unions. The demonstration also targeted corporate greed and excessive corporate compensation.
Maria Elena Durazo, LA Union's executive secretary-treasurer, said airport worker union groups, inspired by OccuFLY, and those who have taken a stand for social and economic justice, have formed the first ever LAX Labor Alliance to support collective bargaining rights and building opportunities for all Americans.
"The FAA reauthorization should be focused on addressing the pressing safety issues that will ensure that the U.S. aviation system remains the safest in the world. Instead, Congress has used this process to gratuitously attack American workers in order to satisfy corporate executives," said Veda Shook, AFA International President. "This controversial labor provision is nothing less than an attack by the 1% against the 99%. We saw it in Wisconsin and Ohio, now we see it for airline and rail workers who are simply seeking the benefits of collective bargaining or fighting to hang on to collective bargaining rights."
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Surplus Orientation Manual (8)
CWA6508 RSS
