26,000 CWA Members Approve Pact with AT&T—and More Bargaining News
Some 26,000 CWA members ratify pact with AT&T in the Southwest, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
CWA, AT&T: AT&T workers in the Southwest ratified a new four-year contract. The 26,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 6 had been working under a contract that expired April 4.
IUE-CWA, Dresser Rand: After nearly two years without a contract, workers at Dresser Rand’s Painted Post facility in New York ratified a contract, effective through March 1, 2013. The contract covers 340 members of IUE-CWA Local 313.
22,000 L.A. Workers Win Pact with City that Saves Jobs—and More Bargaining News
Some 22,000 Los Angeles workers win pact with city that prevents layoffs—and more bargaining news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
Multiple, City of Los Angeles: The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved a pact with the Los Angeles Coalition of City Unions, a group made up of AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions and representing 22,000 city workers. The agreement avoids layoffs and furloughs and will save the city more than $77 million by offering an early retirement plan, reducing the number of hours worked and postponing pay raises until after 2011. A deal with the Los Angeles Police Protective League/IUPA also was approved Friday and will save the city $63 million.
Have We Got a Deal for You: Take a Look at Union-Made Vehicles
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If you are in need of a new, quality set of wheels, there is a huge choice of top-flight union-made cars and trucks that you can, as the salesman says, “drive home today.”
The UAW has just released its annual list of union-made vehicles. The 2010 list includes cars, trucks, pickups, vans, SUVs and crossovers from U.S., European and Asian-based carmakers. The guide lists all vehicles made by UAW members, members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and IUE-CWA.
When you visit a showroom, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says you will find top-quality cars and trucks:
in every price range and in every product category…including hybrids, clean diesels and energy-saving advanced transmission and flex-fuel models.
Pro-Health Care Reform Voices Getting Stronger in Town Hall Meetings
Progressives are taking back the momentum in town hall meetings across the country by organizing and coming out to tell the truth about the need for health care reform. While the media focuses on the hysterics of angry mobs that demonize President Obama and health care reform supporters, the real story is that the voice of progressives is getting louder and stronger at the town hall meetings.
Working In These Times blog reports that Democrats and progressives are pushing back on several fronts against the campaign of misinformation being waged by extremist groups, some with corporate donors and right-wing Republicans.
According to the website, the counter-punching by progressives
includes everything from massive ad buys to pro-reform viral e-mails to aggressive PR about productive congressional town hall meetings that featured strong liberal turnouts.
Retirees Were Promised Health Care—GM Deal Breaks the Promise
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Workers and retirees have suspected for years that companies often use bankruptcy as an excuse to cheat retirees out of their promised benefits. Now, three unions say that’s exactly what the U.S. Treasury Department is doing to tens of thousands of General Motors (GM) retirees.
The IUE-CWA, United Steelworkers (USW) and the Operating Engineers (IUOE) plan to appeal a bankruptcy judge’s approval late last week of a plan to allow the new GM, which now is owned primarily by the taxpayers, to take away health coverage from 55,000 retirees at some GM and GM Delphi plants.
In a series of newspaper ads, the unions urge workers to call the White House at 202-456-1414 or send an e-mail to www.whitehouse.gov and ask President Obama to restore the GM retirees’ health care benefits. Click here to learn more about IUE-CWA’s campaign to save the retirees’ benefits.
The ads feature retirees like Debra Turner (see ad above), a GM retiree who suffers from multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. At 51, she’s not eligible for Medicare. Until now, her GM health care paid for most of the $3,400 a month in medicines she has to take.
Health Care Kumbaya
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| Protest against health insurers need to have both a union and community face—like this march both against foreclosures and for the Employee Free Choice Act earlier in March in Lynn, Mass. |
The peasants are filing their pitchforks to a fine point in anticipation of an attack on the palace—and the target of their ire is not what we might have intended. At this critical moment in the health care debate, more than a few working folk are taking a suspicious look at the health care reform efforts of Senate Democrats, President Obama—and their own unions. A headline in my local newspaper, the Lynn Item, helped stir the tempest: “Obama Open to Taxing Benefits to Fund Reform.”
Vincent Panvani of the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) warns:
If any of these Democratic Senators vote for this, they’ll be out in 2010, and it will be used against Obama….[Y]ou’re taxing the middle class.
Teamsters President James Hoffa calls taxing health care benefits “the poison pill that will kill reform.” The Laborers have attack ads at the ready. And Donna Smith, an organizer and legislative representative for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) notes that insurance companies continue discriminatory rates for older workers and ongoing rescissions of benefits—that is, targeting people with more than 1,400 medical conditions for “opposition research” investigations so their benefits can be cut off. “Ugly stuff,” she puts it. (At a health care forum in Lynn, Mass., last week, Rep. John Tierney reported that in congressional hearings he asked every insurance company if they would stop these viscous targeted rescissions—each one said “No.”)
550,000 NYC Workers Win Pact to Save Jobs, and More Bargaining News
More than 550,000 New York City active and retired workers reached an agreement that will delay and reduce layoffs, and more updates from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
Multiple Unions, New York City: More than 550,000 New York City active and retired workers, represented by unions in the Municipal Labor Committee, including AFSCME, AFT and many other unions, reached an agreement for city workers to contribute more to their health care in exchange for delayed and reduced layoffs.
UAW, General Motors: UAW locals nationwide ratified a new agreement with General Motors and the U.S. government. ”UAW members have once again stepped up to make necessary and painful sacrifices to preserve U.S. manufacturing jobs,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. The agreement laid the groundwork for GM to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in court. The federal government takes a 60 percent ownership stake in the company during its restructuring, and UAW will emerge with a 17.5 percent ownership through shares of the new GM held by the retiree medical VEBA trust. UAW agrees not to strike until 2015 in the new agreement.
UAW, Volvo Mack Trucks: UAW members ratified a master agreement with Volvo Mack Trucks, which includes the establishment of an independent VEBA trust that will assume responsibility for providing health care to retired workers. The trust must be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a process that can take up to 12 months.
IUE-CWA, GE: Some 2,000 General Electric workers at Appliance Park in Louisville, Ky., represented by IUE-CWA Local 761, voted to accept a pay freeze until the current agreement expires in June 2011. In exchange, GE will add some 100 jobs at the Louisville complex. “Hopefully, this gets the ball rolling and starts bringing in these jobs by the end of the year,” said local President Jerry Carney.
AFSCME, Manatee County, Fla.: Manatee County, Fla., School District bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other school support workers with 21 years of seniority, represented by AFSCME, will see a 1 percent pay increase next year under terms of a new agreement.
IBEW, Boston Globe: Technical services workers at the Boston Globe, represented by the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 103, ratified an agreement to help the financially struggling newspaper company. Members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) are set to vote on similar proposals.
IATSE, Eugene, Ore.: Eugene, Ore., city workers, represented by International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 675, agreed to a three-year contract with no pay raise in the first year starting in July, with a 2.5 percent pay increase in the following fiscal year. In the third year, either the union or the city will be able to reopen talks on wages and benefits.
WORK STOPPAGES AND JOB ACTIONS
HPAE-AFT, Englewood Hospital: In New Jersey, 700 nurses, represented by the Union of Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE-AFT), launched pickets outside of the Englewood Hospital and Medical Center after management locked out workers and hired replacements. HPAE-AFT offered to rescind their strike notice, but management said they had to honor their contract with the company, US Nursing, supplying the replacement workers.
NEGOTIATIONS
USW, MeadWestvaco: Workers represented by the United Steelworkers (USW) at MeadWestvaco’s paper mill in Covington, Ky., are set to resume negotiations after a two-year hiatus in bargaining talks.
Disclaimer: This information is being provided for your information only. As it is compiled from published news reports, not from individual unions, we cannot vouch for either its completeness or accuracy; readers who desire further information should directly contact the union involved.
Blue Green Alliance Reaches Historic Agreement on Climate Legislation
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The Blue Green Alliance, a partnership of four unions and two environmental organizations, today announced support for comprehensive climate change legislation. The legislation is an effective way to rapidly put millions of Americans back to work building a clean energy economy and to reduce global warming emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
The alliance called for a reduction of U.S. carbon emissions by at least 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 and is supporting a renewed U.S. effort to forge a global treaty to reduce worldwide emissions by 50 percent by that same date. To meet these goals, domestic climate change legislation should reduce U.S. emissions significantly below 2005 levels by 2020, with individual partners advocating targets ranging from 14 percent to 25 percent.
Online Union-Made Car Guide
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If you’re in the market for a new car and you want to support good union jobs at the same time, check out a website that lists vehicles made by union workers in this country.
The “UAW Made” guide provides information for consumers who want to buy vehicles produced by workers who enjoy the benefits and protections of a union contract. All the vehicles are made in the United States or Canada by members of the UAW, Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) or IUE-CWA.
The list includes cars, vans, pickups and SUVs made by UAW and CAW members.
Click here to read the whole list.
Massachusetts Unions Train Working Teens in Workplace Safety and Health
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO, along with several local unions, is part of a new alliance in the Bay State that will provide workplace safety training for the state’s alternative high school students.
Working with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and several state education and labor agencies, the alliance partners will conduct OSHA’s 10-hour construction and general industry course. In addition, alliance members will develop and conduct a broad workplace health and safety program for the teenagers—many of whom work while attending school—and also address other teen workplace safety issues.
Says Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes:
The most important thing about a job is the ability to make it home safely each night and return healthy the next day. We are involved with this program because it will not only provide valuable safety training so these students will be protected on the job, but it will also give them a leg up on employment opportunities in this tough economy.
