cwa newsletter, thursday, september 12, 2013

7/29/2019 CWA Newsletter, Thursday, September 12, 2013

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September 12, 2013

Want to be in next week's CWA Newsletter? Send your stories and photos [email protected] or@CWANews. Follow the latest developments atwww.resistancegrowing.org.

You Won't Want to Miss Next Week's CWA Town Hall Call: September19

At AFL-CIO Convention, Unions Vote for Growth, Change, Innovation Congressional Black Caucus Pays Tribute to the Labor Movement

Contracts Expire at Verizon West,

CWA Members Rally for Fair Deal

More Ver.di Protests Against Anti-Union Campaign at T-Mobile US

Building Our Movement

CWA: Verizon Plan to Build Out FiOS on Fire Island, NY, is the Right

Call Missouri Workers Defeat Paycheck Deception, Corporate Tax Cut Bills

Ben J ealous Stepping Down as NAACP Leader

Report Confirms: Money Talks, Most Americans Shut Out of PolicyDebates

TNG-CWA: Tell White House & DOJ to Stop the Attacks on J ournalism

Cut Out, Stand Out!

You Won't Want to Miss Next Week's CWA Town Hall Call: September 19

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Next week's town hall call focuses on the amazing partnership CWA localsand TU activists are building with our counterparts in the German unionver.di. Earlier this month, ver.di members held actions and leafleted at 20 T-
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Mobile locations to stand up for the rights of T-Mobile US workers. J oin nextweek's CWA Town Hall Call on Thursday, September 19, at 7:30 p.m. ET tolearn more and how youcan join the fight.

Register here: http://cwa-union.org/cwacall.

At AFL-CIO Convention, Unions Vote for Growth, Change, Innovation

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CWA President Larry Cohen, who co-chaired the convention committee ongrowth, innovation and political action, talks about critical need for movementbuilding.

AFL-CIO convention delegates put new emphasis on organizing, building

partnerships with community allies and other strategies to restore bargainingrights and make democracy work for working families.

Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson summarized some of theconvention action this way: "Having banged its head against a wall for yearswith nothing to show for it but a headache, the American labor movement isdevising a plan to bypass the wall altogether. During its quadrennialconvention here this week, the AFL-CIO has acknowledged that the lawsprotecting employees who seek to join a union have been rendered soineffectual that labor must come up with new ways to advance workers'interests." Read his full column here.

You can read resolutions and watch video coverage here.

CWA President Larry Cohen co-chaired the Committee on Growth,Innovation and Political Action, which developed key programs andresolutions that delegates adopted. Among them:

Each union must develop and submit an organizing plan that covers
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focus, resource commitments, strategies and tactics and projectedtimeline of campaigns.

The AFL-CIO and workers will hold the political parties accountable

and will work to link politics to workers' ability to organize and bargaincollectively through greater alignment of political and organizingcampaigns at the national, state and local levels.

Immigration reform that includes (1) An independent governmentalbody to assess and manage future flows, based on labor marketshortages that are determined on the basis of actual need; (2) Asecure and effective worker authorization mechanism; (3) Rationaloperational control of the border; (4) A road map to citizenship for thecurrent undocumented population; and (5) Improvement, not

expansion, of temporary worker programs.

Continued support for the fight to break through the barriers that blockeffective participation by working people in our democracy, includingvoter suppression, the broken Senate rules, the pervasive influence ofcorporate money in our political process and the lack of a path tocitizenship for 11 million immigrants.

Cohen outlined the resolution on partnerships to reporters, explaining it wasnecessary to strengthen the labor movement and reverse some of the lossessuffered recently in states where collective bargaining rights were rolled back."This is the only way that we know of that's going to turn that around," hesaid.

Josh Coleman, a TU activist from Wichita, Kan., joins President Cohen to talkabout global support for T-Mobile US workers.Credit: Bill Burke Photography.


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Below: President Cohen talks with reporters on partnership resolution.

Cohen also addressed delegates on global organizing strategies, joined byJ osh Coleman, the TU activist from Wichita, Kan.

CWA delegates to the convention Cohen, Chief of Staff Ron Collins, District

6 Vice President Claude Cummings, TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer,IUE-CWA President J im Clark, Executive Board At-Large Members NestorSoto and Greg Wynn, Senior Director Yvette Herrera and Laura Reynolds,assistant to the CWA District 9 vice president all spoke on the floor onresolutions and constitutional amendments, including immigration reform, anend to transgender discrimination, and other issues. Soto introduced andspoke on a resolution adopted by convention delegates that called for theunconditional release of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who is the longest-held politicalprisoner in the history of Puerto Rico.

CWA leaders and activists also led several action sessions at the AFL-CIO

convention.

Democracy Initiative With new Executive Director Marissa Brown, PresidentCohen outlined how the Democracy Initiative, a diverse coalition oforganizations, is fighting back to take the money out of politics, fix the brokenSenate, restore voting rights to put people back into our democracy and gaina path to citizenship for 11 million immigrants.

Brazilian Bank Workers Campaign Vagner Freitas, president of CUT-Brazil,and other Brazilian union leaders were joined by Cohen and UAW PresidentBob King to discuss how strong collective bargaining and social movement

unionism has enabled 40 million Brazilians to climb out of poverty over thepast 10 years. Unions in Brazil have pushed democracy and development inthe right direction and are pledging cooperation in organizing.

Global Organizing Partnerships Cohen and J osh Coleman, a TU activist,discussed the CWA-ver.di partnership that is helping T-Mobile US workersbuild their union.


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Attack on Voting Rights CWA District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings leda discussion on voter suppression and how the labor movement and alliesare fighting to stop these attacks.

Delegates re-elected President Richard Trumka and Secretary-Treasurer Liz

Shuler to new terms; Tefere Gebre, a 45-year-old Ethiopian political refugeewho immigrated to the United States as a teenager, and the executivedirector of the Orange County, Calif., labor federation, was elected executivevice president.

Congressional Black Caucus Pays Tribute to the Labor Movement

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In honor of Labor Day, the Congressional Black Caucus devoted its SpecialOrder Hour on Monday to talk about the importance of organized labor toAfrican Americans and the nation as a whole.

Check out CWA's recap of the speeches featuring Reps. Donald Payne J r.(NJ ), Hakeem J effries (NY), Marc Veasey (TX), J oyce Beatty (OH) and G.K.Butterfield (NC).

"Labor unions played an important role in the civil rights movement," saidBeatty. "Today the labor movement continues to be an important issue toAfrican Americans just as important as it was 50 years ago during the

March on Washington for J obs and Freedom."

Members recalled their work with the labor movement and stories of familymembers who have been proud union workers. J effries talked about his timeas a New York state legislator, supporting the "very courageous" Cablevisiontechnicians in Brooklyn struggling to organize.
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"They voted in the face of significant pressure to the contrary to join the unionand to organize a chapter in order to fight for better wages, stronger healthcare and the possibility of a better retirement," he said.

Watch it now!

Contracts Expire at Verizon West, CWA Members Rally for Fair Deal

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Verizon workers rally for a fair contract.

Contracts covering more than 4,500 CWA members at Verizon West expiredjust before midnight yesterday, with CWA notifying the company that it wascancelling the contract extension that had been in place.

CWA members are working with expired contracts under status quoconditions as bargaining continues this week but are being asked to remainon alert for updates, said Ellen West, who leads the CWA bargainingcommittee and serves as District 9's Southern California Area Director.

CWAers rallied yesterday in many locations in California, standing strong for
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a fair contract. Among the issues are fair wages, healthcare and retirementsecurity and limits on outsourcing of jobs.

Verizon West workers include FiOS technicians, operators, call centerrepresentatives, customer service representatives, cable splicers, field

technicians for business and residential service, buried service wireemployees and other job titles throughout California.

Counting down to midnight, CWA Local 9586 members rally in Long Beach,Calif.

"Bargaining has been contentious and very slow, and we felt that we had toput the company on notice that this is unacceptable," West said.

"Clearly, this isn't a company that's hurting for money," said Ave Malagalaii, aVerizon Operator II employee who lives in Long Beach. "Why should Verizonworkers have to face cutbacks as corporate earnings soar? We are profitable

in California and we want a fair contract now!"

More Ver.di Protests Against Anti-Union Campaign at T-Mobile US

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Members of ver.di confront incoming CEO Timotheus Httges.

Below: A light message tells Deutsche Telekom, "We Expect Better."

Last Saturday, 20 ver.di activists sneaked into a Deutsche Telekom-sponsored event in Berlin called "Long Night of Startups." When incomingCEO Timotheus Httges took the microphone, activists stood up to reveal t-shirts reading, "We Are All J osh. We Are Not Disposable." And during the

main event, a light projection danced on the walls, displaying messagessupporting CWA.

The protest was the latest in an ongoing fight against anti-union tactics atDeutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile US. In May, the company unjustlyfired a top-producing employee, J osh Coleman, a customer servicerepresentative in Wichita, Kan., because of his active union support. Sincethen, German workers have taken on Coleman's case as their own.

Check out more photos of the event on Facebook. And be sure to watch ourvideo of the light projection.

Building Our Movement

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Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, labor leaders and environmental activists callfor repair of America's infrastructure and efforts to prepare our communitiesfor climate change and to reduce carbon pollution.


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CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer joins Ellison,BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster and Minnesota section ofthe American Society of Civil Engineers President Seth Spychala indiscussing how repairing the systems Americans rely on every day for

energy, to get from one place to another, to communicate with each other,and for clean water will create good jobs and address climate change.


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CWA Local 1036 stands with labor and community groups in the NJ Time toCare Coalition to support the first municipal ordinance guaranteeing earnedsick days for all workers in J ersey City. On Wednesday, the City Council ofJ ersey City began considering the legislation.

Today on Capitol Hill, women from all walks of life blocked traffic and chanted"Si, se puede!" in support of an immigration bill that includes a pathway tocitizenship. Our family immigration system has been the primary way thatwomen can get legal entry to the United States and yet currently 4.5 millionpeople wait in the backlog to be reunited with their families.


12/18

Police arrest a UFCW member in a civil disobedience demonstration onCapitol Hill. CWAers supported the more than 100 women who joinedtogether in the sit-down protest for comprehensive immigration reform today.

CWA: Verizon Plan to Build Out FiOS on Fire Island, NY, is the Right Call

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The news that Verizon Communications plans to build out fiber optic cable inFire Island, N.Y., rather than substitute Voice Link wireless technology, is theright decision and welcome news.

"This is a victory for Fire Island residents, and offers a model for the rest of
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the state," said Chris Shelton, CWA District 1 Vice President.

New York State should implement a moratorium on the Voice Link rollout andrequire Verizon to either properly maintain its copper landline network or buildout the FiOS fiber optic network to the millions of New Yorkers currently

bypassed by FiOS who deserve state-of-the-art, reliable internet and phoneservice, Shelton said.

CWA called on Verizon to expand its investment in fiber optic, high speedbroadband, which provides greater capacity for Internet use than wirelesssystems. That's the only way to ensure that our country has a 21st centurybroadband infrastructure, one that meets global standards and enables us tocompete with the rest of the world.

Hundreds of local and state elected officials, public safety officials, laboractivists, residents and small business owners protested Verizon's plans to

substitute inadequate Voice Link wireless service for the system in placebefore Superstorm Sandy. In objections made to the State Public ServiceCommission and the Federal Communications Commission, residentspointed out that they would face inadequate and unavailable alternativeservices and increased costs.

Verizon's decision is a big victory for Fire Island consumers who took a standfor the quality services they need, and it's proof that consumers want theworld class communications system that fiber optic broadband delivers.

Missouri Workers Defeat Paycheck Deception, Corporate Tax Cut Bills

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CWA Public Sector Vice President Brooks Sunkett and CWA members andallies lobby against SB 29, a paycheck deception bill designed to cripple
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public sector unions in Missouri, in Jefferson City.

Yesterday was a big day for Missouri workers, as the GOP-controlled statelegislature failed to override Democratic Gov. J ay Nixon's vetoes of legislationaimed at cutting the corporate tax rate and forcing unions to get written

permission to withhold dues from paychecks.

CWA Local 6355 President Bradley Harmon wrote about the campaign forour blog, Resistance Growing. He said:

In a major blow to a concerted right-wing campaign to undermine workers'rights and public services, Missouri CWA members, working in a coalitionwith labor, faith, student and community groups succeeded in pressuring theMissouri legislature to sustain Governor J ay Nixon's veto of two key billstoday.

The Missouri legislature began the year with the largest Republican majorityin state history. Anti-worker leaders promised a robust legislative agendaundermining unions and cutting taxes on corporations. CWA members andallies were encouraged this spring when the Missouri House passed a socalled "paycheck protection" bill with a bare majority. Democratic GovernorJ ay Nixon promised to veto the bill. The Senate had earlier passed the billwith more than the necessary votes to override any veto.

The House and Senate also passed a special interest funded corporate taxcut bill with substantial majorities in the spring. The bill threatened the jobs of6,000 CWA represented state workers and tens of thousands of school

district employees, including 300 represented by CWA in St. Louis County.Governor Nixon vetoed the bill and, with CWA and allies campaignedaggressively to sustain the veto. Extremist billionaires and their lobbyingfronts in the Chamber of Commerce spent millions on a summer-long publicrelations campaign to round up the votes to override the veto. TexasGovernor Rick Perry even flew in to threaten Missouri politicians that jobswould flee to his state if the Governor's veto was sustained.

Today, on the first day of the veto session, both bills died a well deserveddeath. Pressure from CWA members led to two Senators to switch their voteson the paycheck protection bill, leading to its demise. In the face of

overwhelming money and astroturf, a sufficient number of Representatives inthe Missouri House voted to sustain Governor Nixon's veto of the corporatetax cut bill.

Read more here.

Ben J ealous Stepping Down as NAACP Leader
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Ben J ealous, who led the NAACP for five years and helped re-energize thatorganization, is stepping down as president and CEO at the end of this year.

CWA President Larry Cohen called J ealous "a dynamic leader not only for thecivil rights community, but for all people determined to win true justice."

"His work at the NAACP has made that organization a powerful and leadingvoice for economic and social justice. And early on he realized that joiningwith other progressive groups was the best way to reach that goal. We knowthat he will continue the fight for justice for all in everything he does," Cohensaid.

Under J ealous, the NAACP was one of four founding members of theDemocracy Initiative, which is bringing together allies who share thedetermination to break through the barriers to justice for ordinary Americans:voter suppression, the pervasive influence of corporate money in politics, thebroken Senate rules and the lack of a path to citizenship for 11 millionimmigrants. The other founders are CWA, Sierra Club and Greenpeace.

CWA activists have joined with NAACP members and other allies in NewJ ersey, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Alabama, on the steps of theLincoln Memorial and inmany other places, standing together for what's right

and to fully build our democracy

Report Confirms: Money Talks, Most Americans Shut Out of Policy Debates

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The Democracy Initiative and Demos co-sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing forcongressional staff on the new report "Stacked Deck: How the Dominance ofPolitics by the Affluent & Business Undermines Economic Mobility in

America."

The report was prepared by Demos, a public policy organization fighting forequal voice and opportunity in our democracy for all. The DemocracyInitiative founded by CWA, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the NAACP, andwith a growing number of progressive partners works to break through thebarriers that are limiting our democracy: voter suppression, corporate moneyin politics, the broken Senate rules and the lack of a path to citizenship for 11
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million immigrants.

The report documents how money affects our politics. Money talks, politiciansrespond, and most Americans are shut out of today's policy and politicaldebates. The result: the donor class, which differs from the general public on

core economic issues such as taxes, labor, and regulation, sets the agendain Congress while ordinary Americans too often are forced to watch from thesidelines.

Among the report's key findings:

J ust a few dozen large donors cancel out the voices of millions ofAmericans. In the last election, just 32 donors to Super PACs wereable to match the more than $300 million that President Obama andGovernor Romney combined raised in small contributions from morethan 3.7 million people.

America's economic agenda is shaped by the already-wealthy. Thewealthiest 1 percent list debt and deficits as their top priority, while thegeneral public's main concern is jobs. The conversations by someelected officials and pundit class over the past few years has beenfocused on the debt and the deficit, demonstrating how governmentresponds to the wealthy, not to the needs of the overwhelming majorityof Americans.

It's not enough that nearly 80 percent of the public supports anincrease in the minimum wage to keep working families out of poverty.J ust 40 percent of the wealthy support an increase, and there hasn'tbeen any increase in the minimum wage rate since J uly 2009. The$7.25 hourly wage has lost a third of its value since 1968. Workersgenerally haven't seen any increase in real wages for 40 years.

The anti-union attitudes of the donor class helps explain the escalatingattacks on workers, their bargaining rights and their unions.

Read more here.

TNG-CWA: Tell White House & DOJ to Stop the Attacks on J ournalism

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Democracy demands an independent news media free of governmentinterference. But recently, journalists have been the subject of surveillance inthe government's pursuit of whistleblowers. Through intimidation and harshprosecution, officials are attempting to silence those voices brave enough tospeak up about government wrongdoing. We know that our country has real

and serious national security concerns, but we strongly believe authoritieshave crossed the line by targeting journalists. We are preparing to send aletter to the White House and Department of J ustice asking President Obamaand Attorney General Eric Holder to stop and renounce their actionsthreatening America's free press.

Please join with us by signing the letter here.

Cut Out, Stand Out!

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Los Angeles street artist and activist Ramiro Gomez is making the invisiblevisible. To raise awareness about immigrant service workers in ourcommunities, Gomez has been painting life-size cardboard portraits of daylaborers and domestic workers and placing them in locations where thesereal people work every day.

At the AFL-CIO convention, the AFL-CIO and National Day Labor OrganizingNetwork commissioned various artists to produce cardboard cutouts for the

convention hall inspired by Gomez's artwork. The cutouts represent the workwe do as union members, highlight crucial industries and bring attention tothose whose voices we feel are underrepresented.

Check out these portraits of CWA members, including a Flight Attendant,customer service representative and broadcast technician.
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cwa newsletter, thursday, september 12, 2013

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