1109 News Listing
We have a tentative agreement for a new contract
After 10 straight weeks of talks, after numerous rallies, after countless practice pickets, we can finally say that we have a tentative agreement for a new contract - one which we believe you will be proud of.
Your mobilization efforts has made these negotiations a success!
Acting Manager Update
These members exemplify the meaning of
Sugar Honey Iced Tea.
Rally @140 West Street
Strike Vote
Critical Jobs Issues in Verizon-East Bargaining
Of course, there are other issues at stake in these negotiations, and none is more critical than the jobs of the future. Protecting our jobs is as important as protecting our benefits.
Bringing in the best contract in the world won’t mean much if the bargaining unit keeps shrinking until we end up with no work. As you know, that’s the course Verizon has been on: offering surpluses and backfilling with contractors; defining our work more and more narrowly; using call centers in Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, and India; moving bargaining unit work to lower-wage, lower-benefit workers at Verizon Business and Verizon Wireless; and busting organizing campaigns.
This is how Verizon has shrunk the percentage of revenue that comes from union operations from 70% in 2002 to just 30%. This decline in union work has come even as FiOS has expanded.
FiOS has provided a great opportunity for our members, and its revenues will increase. As the telecom industry continues to be reshaped by technology, we must ensure that future opportunities will also be ours. Voice, video, and data have already converged in many respects, and wireline and wireless are moving in that direction as well.
Verizon has announced that it will use a technology called LTE (long-term evolution) for its 4G network. Verizon’s Chief Technology Officer Dick Lynch says that the LTE network \'will be the first that truly bridges Verizon’s wireline and wireless businesses. . . . The LTE network, however, will bring true broadband speeds, off of which Verizon can hang services it has always reserved for wireline.\'
That future network and any other evolution of the technology must be done by bargaining unit employees under our existing collective bargaining agreements. We must bring current non-union jobs into our bargaining units and prevent Verizon from setting up more non-union subsidiaries in the future.The bottom line is that as Verizon grows, so should we. The wages and benefits we have fought so hard for will be secure only when future jobs at Verizon are secure.
CWA Endorses Barack Obama for President
The 2,000 delegates to the union’s 70th convention voted by acclamation to support Senator Obama’s bid, citing the values that he shares with working families and his support for the critical issues of Employee Free Choice, health care, fair trade and jobs and retirement security.
Senator Obama addressed the CWA convention by satellite. He stressed that families across the country want real change: “an economy that rewards not just wealth but the work and workers who create it.”
“Change is having a President who’s been an organizer…and who lets unions do what they do best and organize our workers. That’s what change is and that’s the choice in this election,” he said.
CWA President Larry Cohen said CWA had committed to the 2008 elections like never before, “in ways we never dreamed of,” to bring about the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States.
Cohen pointed out that CWA and its Alliance partners – the Steel Workers, Auto Workers, and International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers – has more than 1 million active and retired members in the critical election states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. “In these states, we will unite working families and take our message to members in the workplace like never before. With President Obama, we can reform health care, we can win the Employee Free Choice Act and bring about real, positive change for working families in our country,” he said.
Senator Obama has declared that “we are ready to play offense for America’s workers” and CWA is ready to work to make that happen,” Cohen said.
Delegates noted that Senator McCain is in lockstep with President Bush, voting with the administration 89 percent of the time overall and 95 percent in 2007.
Senator Obama’s message of hope and real change has invigorated a new generation of voters and touched Americans of all ages – Democrats, Republicans and Independents, CWA delegates said.
“He is determined to change the culture in Washington, to dispel the current tone of bitter partisan rhetoric and to work to address our nation’s many challenges. If anyone can inspire our leaders and all Americans to make this vision a reality, we believe it is Senator Obama,” they declared. “His historic presidency will be a victory for every American.”