cwa newsletter, november 29, 2012

7/30/2019 CWA Newsletter, November 29, 2012

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November 29, 2012

Send tips [email protected]@CWANews. Follow the latestdevelopments atwww.resistancegrowing.org.

CWAers Take a Stand for Walmart Workers TNG, Allies to FCC: Listen First, Act Later on Media Ownership

Rules CWA, Progressive Allies Relaunch Filibuster Reform Coalition How Raising the Retirement Age Hurts Workers American Airlines Fails to Block Agents' Right to Vote Stamp Out Money in Politics Hurricanes Can Also Cause Chemical Disasters 225 Sign Language Interpreters Join TNG We Want to Hear From You!

CWAers Take a Stand for Walmart Workers

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CWA members from several California locals were outside Walmart storeson Black Friday, supporting Walmart workers fight for fair wages, hours
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and treatment. Members of UPTE Local 9119 joined the crowd at theRichmond store, along with Rep. George Miller, ranking member of theHouse Education and Labor Committee and part of the House Democraticleadership.

Below: CWAers were part of a huge action in Milwaukee that hit threeWalmart stores. Activists gathered outside the stores, then marched insideto show their support for Walmart workers.

CWA members were out in force on Black Friday, standing strong withWalmart employees who are fighting against the company's mistreatmentof workers. Walmart routinely cuts workers' hours so that they're not eligiblefor health care; many Walmart employees earn so little that they are eligiblefor food stamps to make ends meet.

CWA members joined UFCW activists and other progressive allies atprayer vigils and store demonstrations from New York to Colorado toCalifornia. At many demonstrations, the groups delivered letters tomanagement calling on Walmart to stop its mistreatment of workers.

In Milwaukee, members of CWA Local 4603 were part of an awesome laboraction at several stores. Dru Zellmer, assistant chief steward at the Local,reported: "We started off at the Capital Court store. The police were out inforce and restricted us to the sidewalk. The hundreds in attendancechanted and walked the line. We all piled into buses and moved to the nextstore. We arrived at the E. Capital store to a police greeting. We surged upthe front of the store chanting 'WE SUPPORT THE WALMARTWORKERS!' Looking around, we got lots of smiles from the associates onduty. We made our point at that store and headed for the last stop, the 27thStreet store. We arrived again to a police greeting. This time there were


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four cars and two wagons. The officers pulled out their batons andthreatened the group as we entered the parking lot. They grabbed a coupleof us in front. We pushed by and into the store. We walked around everyaisle in the store chanting and waving to all of the associates. One of thewomen working actually was moved to tears; just seeing that people would

stand up for her and her family got to her. It makes it all worth it to providehope and let these workers know there is a support system out there."

In Reno, Judy Jensen, a member of the CWA Local 9414, told the NewsReview, "I'm out here to support the workers, not just in Reno, butnationally."

Jensen said, "There's a lot of intimidation going on. I think Walmart can doa much better job of paying their people...You know, they say they givethem health care, but there have been at least three studies that show thattheir workers because of the wages are having to live on public

assistance."

TNG, Allies to FCC: Listen First, Act Later on Media Ownership Rules

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TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer was among featured speakers,including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, on a press call Wednesday to demandthat the FCC hold public hearings before rushing into another damagingrollback of media ownership rules.

"People need more time to talk about what kind of media they want andwhat kind of policy affects that," Lunzer said, stressing that everyone has astake in diverse news coverage, diversity in hiring and diverse ownership ofmedia companies. Currently, women own less than 7 percent of allbroadcast outlets and people of color own just 3.6 percent of all TV stationsand only 8 percent of radio stations. Much of the rest are controlled bymedia monopolies.

The lack of diversity would get even worse under the new rules, whichwould allow a single company to own a daily newspaper, two TV stations

and up to eight radio stations in a single market. The company could alsobe a community's Internet provider.

"Our democracy is supposed to be bottom up, not top down," Jackson said."When too few people own too much media, it is not healthy."

For more information about what's being proposed and what's at stake, go
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to www.FreePress.net.

To listen to the news conference, click here.

CWA, Progressive Allies Relaunch Filibuster Reform Coalition

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CWA and its progressive allies are reuniting an advocacy coalition to buildsupport for substantive Senate rules reforms at the start of the 113thCongress.

CWA, Alliance for Justice, Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause,Sierra Club, and United Auto Workers will continue the work begun in 2010when Democratic Sens. Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley and Tom Harkin led an

effort to overhaul the filibuster:

Facing unparalleled challenges a languid economic recovery, crushingdebt, and threats at home and abroad the country cannot afford anothertwo years of inaction fostered by outmoded and broken legislativeinstitutions.

In recent decades, Senate conventions have devolved to remove incentivesfor bipartisan comity, collegiality, and compromise. Whereas Senators onceresorted to filibustering only in rare and exceptional instances of intenseopposition, rampant obstruction has now transformed standard operating

procedure. Today, majority rule in the Senate is the exception, not the rule.

We believe that common sense reforms will end routine and reflexiveobstruction and will ensure that the Senate will once again be able toaddress the critical issues facing our country.

After the announcement, CWA President Larry Cohen told MSNBC.comthat Reid's reforms won't immediately allow the labor movement to passpriorities like the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). In 2009, the GOPused a filibuster to prevented EFCA from being debated on the Senate floordespite majority support. But that doesn't mean the reforms wouldn't do

some good, he said. MSNBC.com explained:

Merely forcing the Senate to debate bills, rather than being able to filibusterup front, would be in the public interest.

"It's not so much about what are we going to enact," Cohen said, notingthat Republicans control the House anyway. "It's about, is the Senate going
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to discuss anything?"

Forcing Republicans to talk while filibustering would focus attention on theiropposition to popular measures, like the DREAM Act. "They'd actually haveto say: 'For the first time ever in this country, there's no American Dream for

immigrants,'" Cohen said.

Cohen portrayed the prospective changes as part of a longer-term strategy along with other good government measures like campaign financereform to fix what many progressives see as a broken democraticprocess. Only when that's done, they argue, will it be possible to enact agenuine, far-reaching progressive agenda.

"This is a linchpin in terms of how do we start to get a democracy in thiscountry again," Cohen said. "It's got nothing to do with labor issues per se."

"The lowest hanging fruit on that tree are the Senate rules," he added. "Soit's a starting point."

Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell spent a number of daysthis week in a heated debate over Reid's plan to prohibit filibusters for"motions to proceed" to a bill, which allows debate on the floor to start.

"To the average American, these reforms are just common sense," Reidsaid. "Americans believe Congress is broken. The only ones who disagreeare Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Congress."

To learn more, check out www.FixTheSenateNow.org.

How Raising the Retirement Age Hurts Workers

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Raising the Social Security retirement age is a lousy idea.

Sure, this proposal to "fix" Social Security seems to have gainedmomentum. But look closer and you'll see it's mostly among columnists,

CEOs, politicians and policymakers people who get paid way more thanaverage Americans, love their jobs and probably aren't counting down thedays until they get to stop working. These certainly aren't blue-collarworkers with physically demanding jobs.
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The Washington Post's Ezra Klein writes:

That's what's galling about this easy argument. The people who make it,the pundits and the senators and the CEOs, they'll never feel it. They don'twant to retire at age 65, and they don't have short life expectancies, andthey're not mainly relying on Social Security for their retirement income.They're bravely advocating a cut they'll never feel.

Just take a look at this graph (right).

Since 1977, the life expectancy of male workers retiring at age 65 has risen

six years in the top half of earners. But the bottom half of the incomedistribution saw their life expectancy grow just barely a year.

So raising the retirement age is neither simple nor fair.

In the words of Nobel laureate economist and Social Security expert PeterDiamond:

What do we know about the people who retire at 62? On average, shorterlife expectancy and lower earnings than people retiring at later ages. Ifanyone stood up and said, "Instead of doing uniform across the board cuts,

let's make them a little worse for people who have shorter life expectanciesand lower earnings," they'd be laughed at.

American Airlines Fails to Block Agents' Right to Vote
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The CWA Executive Board applauds Rosemary Capasso, a passengerservice agent at Dallas Ft. Worth Airport.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia one of the most "businessfriendly" justices has cleared the way for nearly 9,700 American Airlinespassenger service agents to vote on union representation. Denying theairline's last-ditch plea for an appeal, the high court finally put an end toattacks on workers' democratic right to an election.

Sample instructions were sent to CWA and American Airlines management

this week, and on Dec. 4, voting instructions will be sent to agents, withvoting conducted by telephone or Internet. The National Mediation Boardwill tally votes at 2 pm on Jan. 15.

This was just the latest legal challenge to employees' struggle for a unionvoice. For more than a year, American Airlines has been battling workersand CWA over agents' democratic right to vote, ignoring declarations byleading members of Congress that agents were entitled to vote, twodecisions by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and previous directives fromthe NMB setting an election date.

The stakes for agents are high. American Airlines has been cutting andoutsourcing jobs, completely closing operations in at least seven stationsand cutting agents' wages and benefits, all with more than $5 billion in thebank. Ken Merker, a 20-year airport agent in Miami, says agents havefought long and hard for their right to vote. "When we start voting on Dec. 4,it will have been a year since we filed for this election and what a terribleyear it has been. American in bankruptcy, our pensions frozen, our retiree
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medical gone, our medical costs skyrocketing,"

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied the airline's request for a hearingwithout comment. But American Airlines hasn't stopped trying to interferewith workers' rights.

"American is trying to disenfranchise agents' right to vote, by seeking toexclude from the voting lists agents who just lost their jobs and have recallrights, as well as those still working for American Airlines during the votingprocess but who have plans to retire. And it's trying to pad the voting listsby adding nearly 900 workers. American Airlines has had a year to make itsclaims about changes to the lists, but doing it now, on the eve of theelection, makes its true motive clear. American Airlines wants to throwanother monkey wrench into the process, but agents are ready," saidSandy Rusher, CWA organizing director.

Stamp Out Money in Politics

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Here's an easy and fun way to take a stand against money in politics.

The website www.StampStampede.org is part of the movement to amendthe Constitution to get money out of politics and to make it clear thatcorporations are not people and money isn't speech. It was started by BenCohen of Ben and Jerry's ice cream fame, and has lots of supporters,including CWA allies Public Citizen and People for the American Way.

And it's 100 percent guaranteed that others will get the message. How?

StampStampede sells stamps (at cost, about $8) with several messages,
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including "Stamp Money Out of Politics" and "Corporations are not people,money is not free speech." When you stamp a dollar bill which iscompletely legal it will be seen by 875 people over the next 2.5 years, heestimates. Ben Cohen calls it "a petition on steroids."

Several thousand stamps already have been sold, Ben Cohen says, withordinary Americans taking a stand against money in politics and joining thefight to return our democracy to the people.

Check out www.StampStampede.org.

Hurricanes Can Also Cause Chemical Disasters

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CWA President Larry Cohen and Greenpeace USA Executive DirectorPhilip D. Radford wrote thefollowing op-ed in The Huffington Post:

Even in good weather a major threat looms over many of our largest cities.The threat is in the form of poison gases stored at thousands of U.S.-basedchemical plants. In the event of an accident, terrorist attack or anotherclimate disaster such as Hurricane Sandy, millions of lives could be put in

jeopardy. Although a worse case chemical disaster didn't happen this time,it easily could have. For example, it was widely reported that Sandyknocked over a 22-car freight train adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike inone of the most densely populated areas of the U.S. If just one of those rail

cars was carrying a poison gas such as chlorine and it had ruptured, over amillion people would be at risk of immediate injury or death. Trains routinelyservice major chemical plants. There are 38 high-risk chemical plants inNew Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania that each put 100,000 or moreworkers and residents at risk of a poison gas catastrophe. When theseplants suddenly lose power, they can become even more dangerous. Lastyear a sudden power failure triggered a "shelter-in-place" warning to TexasCity communities surrounding BP, Valero and Marathon refineries.

Hurricanes and human error aren't the only threats to chemical facilities. OnOctober 11th, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta issued a chilling warning

saying that these same chemical plants and other sectors are vulnerable tocyber attacks, "The collective result of these kinds of attacks could be acyber Pearl Harbor."

In the wake of the horrific September 11th attacks, the nation's chemicalfacilities commanded the attention of both political parties. Leaders such asGovernor Christine Whitman (R-NJ) gave voice to this problem from inside
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the Environmental Protection Agency. Chemical facilities near the nation'scapitol transitioned from deadly chemicals to safer alternatives. Bills weredrafted in Congress to ensure that the millions of Americans who live in theshadow of a chemical plant would never be exposed to harm.

But the oil and chemical lobby and their allies in Congress (includingRepublican Vice-Presidential nominee Representative Paul Ryan) and theBush White House opposed promising legislation (H.R. 2868) and evenhelped scuttle Whitman's plan to use the Clean Air Act's "Bhopalamendment" to prevent chemical disasters at high-risk chemical plants.Now, over a decade later, these plants still pose a threat to us, in majorcities and small towns, every single day.

One in three Americans lives in the shadow of one of these facilities,spread out across the country. In fact, the danger zones of these plantsoften extend so far that you might not even know you live or work in it. Due

to the volume of chemicals stored at these facilities, an accident or anattack could release a cloud of poison gas that could endanger people 14miles down wind. Many of these facilities are more vulnerable to stormsbecause they are located in ports along our coasts. They are bothenvironmental and security risks the U.S. Army Surgeon Generalestimated that an attack on just one U.S. chemical plant could kill or injureup to 2.4 million people.

Fortunately, there are proven affordable solutions. Since 2009, The CloroxCompany converted all of their plants to safer processes. Yet the industryas a whole has demonstrated a gross failure to act.

If Hurricane Sandy had also triggered a chemical disaster, it would haveexponentially increased the already historic impact it has already wrought.It's time to get serious about these hazards. President Obama and the EPAcan use the Clean Air Act to safeguard people working and living downwindof our nation's highest risk chemical plants. Environmental and labororganizations stand behind this common sense proposal. It's also smartpolitics, and it would have the support of anyone who's concerned aboutprotecting the safety and security of their city, their job and theenvironment.

225 Sign Language Interpreters Join TNG

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Antionia Peel and Laurie Rivard celebrate election results at Purple

Communications in Oakland, Calif.

More than 225 eligible certified American Sign Language interpreters atPurple Communications, the second largest video relay service provider inthe country, voted to join The Newspaper Guild yesterday in California,Arizona and Colorado.

Purple Communications call centers are the first video relay serviceproviders in the country to unionize. Workers who led organizing at theirsites said the votes marked the beginning of a new set of professional workstandards for video interpreters and new opportunities to advocate for the

needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.

"Everyone at CWA has given us our Capitol 'V' in Voice. History has beenset. We only have the stars to shoot for! Let's show everyone what we cando. United we stand!" said Antonia Peel of Oakland, Calif.

The interpreters will become part of TNG-CWA Local 39521, the SanFrancisco-based Pacific Media Workers Guild, which also includes the 900-member California Federation of Interpreters.

Next up: Interpreters at Purple Communications in Chicago are scheduled

to vote on Dec. 14th.

We Want to Hear From You!

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12/12

CWA locals and members are known for their community support andgenerous spirit, not just during the holidays but year-round. Tell us howyour local has reached out to your community in just a few sentences andphotos, if possible. Send your info to [email protected].

Here are a few examples to get the ball rolling:

CWA Local 1040, the statewide New Jersey local, collected suppliesfor the Mercer Street Friends food bank for Hurricane Sandy victims,and members now are participating in the Coats for Kids project.

CWA Local 4100 in Detroit works with a local church to help thehomeless, and members and stewards are geared up for the annualAdopt-a-Family program that makes sure needy families will haveholiday toys and gifts.

In New York City, CWA Local 1180's annual toy drive is underway,with shop stewards and members collecting toys at every work site.

The unwrapped toys will be donated to children from the BlackVeterans for Social Justice.

Let us know what your local has been doing this year! Send your photosand a few sentences to [email protected].
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

cwa newsletter, november 29, 2012

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