January '08 Executive Vice President's Report

The Union for the Information Age

Jamuary 2008 Executive Vice-President's Report
by Stan Wylie, Vice President

Happy New Year to all!! As we enter this year I am trying to be optimistic. Given how last year was I know it will be difficult… There will be many challenges in the coming year for all of us. Here locally we will be ramping up for bargaining the Qwest contract as well as the big elections coming up. Both of those issues are going to be very important for the employees at Qwest as well as every other working person in the country.

On the Qwest front it seems the company is not holding anything back. They are still being difficult and if I had to guage each month they get even more difficult. The interesting thing is the managers seem to putting all their frustrations and accountability issues onto the employees. It is creating some stressful working conditions for most and really not showing any good will at all. I truly don't understand why they want to take such aggressive stands against the employees with a contract coming up. It is almost like they are saying go ahead and go on strike… One thing fur sure is they are not building up a whole lot of goodwill towards their employer. Time will tell…. We ended the year with 344 greivances up from 186 for 2006. Clearly a huge difference.

From the national side it is very interesting to watch the lead up to the elections and in 11 months we will have a newly elected president. I am one who always tries to embrace change so am looking forward to the changing of our president. Hopefully it will be a person who understands working families and understands working people need help. They need healthcare they can afford, they need wages they can live on, they need employment security they can count on. Those just touch a few of the big issues of course and understanding of course the President is not solely responsible for these issues it takes the rest of the politicicians as well. From the city level all the way up the change.

Our elected representatives need to hear from their constituents it is the only thing they should be basing their decisions on. What is best for my constituents? What do they want? It is their job to work for us that is why we elected them. So don't be shy in letting them know how you feel. The Local will be working hard for the next several months in electing folks who will work to benefit the working family so again if you want to get involved please let us know.

We have scheduled stewards training for the first week of February. Again I want to thank everyone who has stepped up in the past year. I look forward to working with them and training them.

My report is kind of brief this month so I will apologize for that. Several issues I was going to mention were reported out by Malachy as well so instead of being repetitive will refer you to his report for other information.