CUSTOMER SERVICE ACTION NETWORK

Dear Brenda,

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the CWA Customer Service

Newsletter. This newsletter is part of the new Customer Service Action

Network, which connects CWA’s customer service membership across the

country and across employers to share information and stand in solidarity.

Please tell us what you would like to see in the newsletter. Email:

CSActionNetwork@cwa-union.org

You can also join our Facebook group and check out the Customer Service

page of the CWA web site (we will be adding more resources soon!).

Customer Service News & Action

Our news round-up in this edition is very action oriented. Take a read and

take action!

Tell Congress: Stand Up Against Call Center Offshoring

Tell Congress to take a stand to protect our jobs and communities by making

it harder for corporations to offshore call center jobs. Profitable companies like

AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are shipping good jobs overseas to call centers

in Mexico, El Salvador, the Philippines and other countries at an alarming

rate. We need to take action and fight for good, union jobs in the U.S.

Sign the petition ► We’ll keep you updated on legislation as it is introduced.

Solidarity with Union Members in the Dominican Republic

One major destination for offshored call center jobs is the Dominican

Republic. AT&T’s vendor Teleperformance is targeting union activists in the

DR for termination and trying to deauthorize their union in court, actions that

would not be acceptable in Teleperformance’s home country of France.

One union leader, Oliver Benson, is currently fighting in court to save his job

after the company attempted to fire him for writing the following message on

social media:

“Companies like Verizon, AT&T, Samsung and others outsource their

operations to companies like Teleperformance, Convergys and Alorica with

the objective of reducing COSTS. These companies take advantage of the

economic situation and the low educational quality of many countries in the

world, mainly in Latin America, to squash labor rights and basic human rights.”

Join our brothers and sisters at UNI Global Union in demanding that AT&T

and Teleperformance respect the rights of workers to form a union in the

Dominican Republic.

We'll have a social media storm on February 28, the day of

Teleperformance's annual meeting of shareholders.

Click here to RSVP ► We’ll send you messages to tweet and share on Facebook.

AT&T Contract Fights: 59,000 Members Strong

CWA members are turning up the heat on AT&T to settle fair contracts with

workers across its business divisions and to stop outsourcing thousands of

jobs to low-wage contractors. Twenty-one thousand wireless workers in the

AT&T Orange contract covering 36 states and DC are mobilized like next

never before, fighting against cuts to wages and increases in health care

costs. In California and Nevada, 17,000 AT&T wireline workers have been

working without a contract for almost one year. A third contract covering

21,000 wireline workers in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas

is set to expire in April 2017.

Visit our new web site ► where you can sign the petition to CEO Randall Stephenson to show your support for AT&T workers. Share it with your

coworkers, friends and family, too!

Meet the Customer Service Advocacy Committee The Customer Service Action Network is an initiative of CWA’s Customer

Service Advocacy Committee, which has ten members representing each

district and division of CWA that has customer service membership. We will

introduce a few members of the committee in each of the first three

newsletters.

Ethelyne Dianna Brooks, AT&T Mobility

Executive Vice President, Local 6016, Oklahoma City, OK

I greet you in brotherly love. My name is Ethelyne

Brooks, but everyone at the call center calls me Mrs. Brooks. I started this

journey as an TSPS operator back on July 14, 1980. I attended Classen High

School here in Oklahoma City. I had a crazy supervisor and I became a

radical union steward. Back in the eighties, unions were very visible and

strong. I have been through two strikes and without a doubt, it has made me

the person I am today. I am energized and 100% committed to growing our

union. I am presently the Executive Vice President of Local 6016. I represent

over 1,200 employees. This consists of seventeen retail stores and two call

centers (Consumer and Business Advanced Technical Support). Read more

of Dianna’s bio at this link.

David Tolbert, Verizon

Steward, Local 2106, Salisbury, MD

Hi, my name is David Tolbert. I have been a Sales

and Service Consultant at Verizon for almost 8 years. Before my start at

Verizon, I worked at a previous corporation for almost 10 years that

purchased by another company that came in and promised us that our jobs

would be safe. Not even 4 months in we started to see a change, some of our

products started to be outsourced to other countries. The worry began to grow

over myself and other colleagues. So about 9 months in we received

notification that our plant would be closed. Read more of David’s bio at this

link.

Lori Manuel, American Airlines

Executive Vice President, Local 3640, Winston-Salem, NC

My name is Lori Manuel, I've been employed with American Airlines, by way

of Piedmont Airlines, USAir and US Airways since 1984. I currently work in

the Concierge Key department at American. This department handles VIP

members and celebrities alike. I have worked in numerous departments, even

in management departments prior to voting for the union and our first contract.

Of course, I would never cross back to the "other side" again. I have been an

officer of Local 3640 in Winston-Salem, NC for over 12 years and my current

position is Executive Vice President. Read more of Lori’s bio at this link.