• CWA: Hilda Solis an Advocate for Workers
• Did You Vote Yet?
• Bargaining Begins for 125,000 at AT&T Core,
  Negotiations Resume at AT&T Mobility
• Obama Takes Big Step Toward Real Health Care Reform
• Leading Economists Say Employee Free Choice is Key to Economic Growth
• Alliance for Digital Equality Urges Broadband Access
• New @ The Source: AT&T mobilization, photos, & cartoons

CWA: Hilda Solis is an Advocate for Workers

The U.S. Senate's confirmation this week of Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) as secretary of labor is a critical step toward creating new and green jobs while reversing the Labor Department's past eight years of neglect and contempt for workers' rights, CWA said.

"Secretary Solis has long been an effective voice for workers' rights," CWA President Larry Cohen said. "Her strong support for the Employee Free Choice Act is especially critical as our nation moves to rebuild the middle class and restore an economy that works for everyone."

CWA leadership and members stood strong behind Solis throughout the confirmation process, reaching out to key members of the Senate. The vote to confirm her was 80-17; Republican leaders had delayed the vote for more than a month.

In addition to an impressive record defending workers' rights, Cohen said Solis has the vision to help grow a 21st century workforce that is highly skilled and green. She is a longtime advocate for "green manufacturing" to create jobs of the future and help the United States achieve a clean energy economy.

"She is an ideal advocate to help the Obama-Biden administration champion workers and create the jobs needed to jumpstart out economy," Cohen said. Did You Vote Yet?

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Here's a survey you won't want to miss. There's still time to cast your vote in the Parade magazine poll on whether America still needs unions. Click here to vote.

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Bargaining Begins for 125,000 at AT&T Core,

Negotiations Resume at AT&T Mobility

Above, members of Detriot, Mich., Locals 4004, 4050 and 4100 mobilize to support AT&T core bargaining. AT&T Mobility workers, below, call for "Fair contract now" in leafleting outside a Mobility retail store in Portland, Oregon.

Negotiations opened this week for new contracts covering 125,000 CWAers at AT&T. At separate bargaining tables, CWA vice presidents called on the company to set the right priorities in negotiations and recognize the contributions of AT&T employees and retirees to making and keeping the company successful.

Separately, negotiations resumed with AT&T Mobility for 20,000 workers covered by the "Orange" contract.

Even in this economic downturn, AT&T is a very profitable company and well-positioned for 2009. The company posted $12.9 billion in profits last year, including $2.4 billion in the last quarter. AT&T has taken care of investors and top executives; it must meet its commitments to workers and retirees too, and not look to cut jobs and benefits.

CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill said AT&T should be a leader in helping to turn the economy and in providing good middle class jobs, not cutting benefits and lowering the standard of living for employees.

Bargaining began Feb. 24 at six tables, covering AT&T East (formerly SNET), AT&T Southeast (formerly BellSouth), AT&T Midwest (formerly Ameritech), AT&T Southeast (formerly Southwestern Bell), AT&T West (formerly PacBell), and AT&T Legacy. The contracts, with the exception of AT&T Southeast, expire April 4. The AT&T Southeast contract expires in August.

AT&T bargaining updates will be posted on CWA District websites, go to www.cwa-union.org/att/bargaining for those links. For AT&T mobilization activities and information visit www.cwa-union.org/att and for updates on Mobility bargaining, go to www.cwa-union.org/att/mobility.

Obama Takes Big Step Toward Real Health Care Reform

On Tuesday night, President Obama pronounced before a joint session of Congress that “health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.”  And less than 48 hours later he proposed a $634 billion reserve fund dedicated to health care reform. 

“We can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold,” the President said. “We must make it a priority to give every single American quality, affordable health care. With this budget we are making a historic commitment to comprehensive health-care reform.”

The proposed budget includes a $634 billion health care “reserve fund” that represents a “down payment on quality, affordable health care for all Americans,” and the administration is determined to work with members of Congress to identify additional sources of health care funding. These include reforms to the Medicare and Medicaid programs that will produce system-wide savings and income tax changes for high income earners – households earning more than $250,000 a year.

In just one month plus one week, the Obama Administration has already enacted several important measures that will move the country along the path toward universal health care.  These include maintaining coverage for 7 million children and adding another 4 million to the state children’s health insurance program, expanding health care protections for jobless workers through the COBRA program, focusing on health information technology to gain additional cost savings, and expanding funds for prevention and wellness programs, as well as for training for health care professionals.  

CWA strongly supports comprehensive health care reform that results in guaranteed, affordable coverage for all, and to which all employers contribute.

Leading Economists Say Employee Free Choice

is Key to Economic Growth

More than three dozen of the nation's leading economists signed on to a public statement of support for the Employee Free Choice Act, stressing that the right to join a union and bargain collectively is essential to rebuilding the economy.

The statement was published in the Feb. 25 Washington Post. Signers include two Nobel Prize winners and economists from Harvard, Princeton and other top U.S. universities.

James K. Galbraith of the University of Texas said "unions are a proven ally of progress, not only in politics but also in economics: unionized workforces promote technical change and productivity growth because they make it possible to distribute more fairly and less brutally the costs of change."

The statement notes the "unusual and unhealthy" situation in which hourly compensation for U.S. workers has stagnated even as their productivity has soared.

"Indeed, from 2000 to 2007, the income of the median working-age household fell by $2,000 — an unprecedented decline. In that time, virtually all of the nation's economic growth went to a small number of wealthy Americans. An important reason for the shift from broadly-shared prosperity to growing inequality is the erosion of workers' ability to form unions and bargain collectively," the economists said.

While polls indicate that millions of Americans want the chance to form a union, "the election process overseen by the National Labor Relations Board has become drawn out and acrimonious, with management campaigning fiercely to deter unionization. Union sympathizers are routinely threatened or even fired, and they have little effective recourse under the law. Even when workers overcome this pressure and vote for a union, they are unable to obtain contracts one-third of the time due to management resistance," the statement says.

The remedy, the economists said, is the Employee Free Choice Act. "A rising tide lifts all boats only when labor and management bargain on relatively equal terms. In recent decades, most bargaining power has resided with management.  The current recession will further weaken the ability of workers to bargain individually.   More than ever, workers will need to act together.

"As economists, we believe this is a critically important step in rebuilding our economy and strengthening our democracy by enhancing the voice of working people in the workplace."

Read more about the statement and the economists who signed it at www.epi.org.

Alliance for Digital Equality Press for Broadband Access

The Alliance for Digital Equality briefed members of Congress this week on the critical need to bring high speed broadband access to citizens in underserved communities.

CWA is a member of ADE, along with corporate, consumer, public policy and other organizations.

At the Capitol Hill briefing, House Majority Whip James Clyburn said the Alliance's work will lead to improvement in education, health care, economic and public safety sectors as it reinforces the need for full community access to high speed broadband. "Those consumers at the lower end of the pay scale should not be forced out of the digital revolution because of limited access to affordable high-speed broadband in their communities," he said.

CWA senior director George Kohl outlined CWA's two-year effort to raise the alarm that the United States was falling far behind the nations of the world in terms of citizen access to high speed Internet and the promise that technology offers.

CWA's "Speed Matters" campaign has pressed for the buildout of true high speed broadband networks in the U.S. as the necessary economic engine of the 21st century. In rural areas, in urban communities that are underserved and everywhere in between, the goal is to ensure that all Americans have access to the opportunity of the Internet Age.

Kohl said CWA, with members in every state and community across the nation, was committed to working with the ADE's Digital Empowerment Councils to ensure that "every child, every family, every community in America has the tolls they need to participate fully in the Information Age." 

The economic stimulus plan passed by Congress provides an opportunity for real progress by including $7.2 billion for broadband programs.

The briefing was hosted by Clyburn for members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

New @ The Source: AT&T mobilization, photos, & cartoons

 

New AT&T bargaining mobilization information for CWAers at AT&T core and Mobility has been added to the Campaign section on The Source, CWA's website for CWA communicators. Click here for links to mobilization activities and information.

Also added to The Source this week are new cartoons http://cwa.smugmug.com/gallery/7453145_bD4V3 on Employee Free Choice and new Employee Free Choice rally photos at http://cwa.smugmug.com/gallery/3572216.

The Source is updated every week with the latest edition of CWA's leadership newsletter www.cwa-union.org/source/news/news/ and much more. Navigate to The Source by clicking on the "Tools for Communicators" link on CWA's main website or by clicking here.