• The Latest on Health Care Reform
• At AT&T: Mobe Makes the Difference
• Franken's First Order of Business: Cosponsoring Employee Free Choice
• Deeds Meets with CWA Leaders
• New CWA Website Helps Shareholder Activists

The Latest on Health Care Reform

The House of Representatives is on track to introduce a comprehensive health care reform bill this week and to hold committee markup and votes beginning next week.

Three House committees -- Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means – have been working together to produce one bill.

CWA has four key priorities for real reform: participation by all employers, coverage for pre-Medicare eligible retirees, a public plan option and no taxes on health care benefits for working and middle class families. 

On the Senate side, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee is putting the final touches on its package that will include a public plan option, employer mandates and other provisions. Still in the works is the Senate Finance Committee version.  

At AT&T: Mobe Makes the Difference

CWAers from Local 4603, Milwaukee (top photo), and Local 13550, Pittsburgh, mobilize for quality AT&T contracts.

Look at any big public event lately, and guess what? CWAers are there, making sure AT&T and the public get our message loud and clear.

The company's big Tiger Woods golf tournament outside Washington, D.C.? We were there. Major League Baseball's All-Star game in St Louis? We'll be there.

Health care reform rallies and town hall meetings? CWAers are there with a special message for AT&T: Cutting healthcare is a sick idea.  

It's this continuing mobilization that keeps the heat on AT&T and shows our bargaining teams that we support them and the tough job they have.

Negotiations are continuing across all the districts and Communications & Technologies. CWAers at AT&T Advertising Solutions in District 3 began bargaining on July 7, and negotiations for the new contract covering about 36,000 BellSouth workers gets going July 20.

Franken's First Order of Business:

Cosponsoring Employee Free Choice

New Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) didn't waste any time and signed on as a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act just hours after he was sworn in.

"As of about a half an hour ago, I became the cosponsor of my first piece of legislation in the Senate. It's something called the Employee Free Choice Act," Franken told a union group.

Franken said his membership in four unions gave his family the opportunities that all working families deserve, like health care and retirement security. "Unions built the middle class in the country," he said. Senate champions like Franken are exactly what working families need to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed.

Deeds Meets with CWA Leaders

Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia, swung by CWA headquarters on Thursday afternoon to meet with President Larry Cohen and CWA District 2 Vice President Ron Collins.

Deeds, who served nearly 20 years in the Virginia General Assembly and Senate, has a strong record of support for Virginia working family issues, including affordable, accessible health care for all.

Virginia and New Jersey are the only states with governor's elections this year.

New CWA Website Helps Shareholder Activists

A new CWA toolbox online is full of tactics and strategies to help workers exercise our rights as company shareholders. Ever wondered: How do I submit a shareholder proposal for annual meetings? Or, how do proxies work?

Find the answers and much more at http://investor.cwa-union.org. The site includes a PowerPoint presentation that can be downloaded for meetings.