July Executive Vice President's Report

The Union for the Information Age

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

Let the games begin!! That is what if feels like as we start bargaining today. Bargaining a contract should be a time when the company and the union work together to improve working conditions and reevaluate the contract to see what worked well and what didn’t work well, it's a time to reach some middle ground solutions that benefit the employees as well as the company. Unfortunately we are far from that.

In the last year I have seen the company continue to discipline employees for performance standards but the company can’t explain why a particular individual may have missed the target. We can look at every piece of work the employee did in a month and ask what did the employee do wrong here? The response if any at all is the same “I don’t know.” They didn’t meet the goal. It is unacceptable. Our grievances are double this year then they were last and last year they were double what they were the year before. Now the company is bitching that we file too many grievances. They seem to forget we have an obligation to represent our members and we have an obligation to make sure the company does not systematically railroad our members without just cause. When the company’s only answer is they did not meet the goal and over 75% of the members are not meeting the goal is it the members issue or the company's issue? We have close to 50 grievance responses that are almost word for word responses regardless of the individual arguments the union brought forth for every individual member. None of those responses address any of the arguments made in the grievance. How is that trying to resolve an issue? It isn’t. They are simply playing a game and that is their move. We will continue to file grievances and we will continue to represent our members.

Now the company tells me that management can’t send an email to a union steward at a company email address because that is “Union business not company business”. I ask them “Then why are you calling me if its union business?” It’s not union business it is company business when it comes to representing our membership it is an issue with the company. Then I get “I am only doing what I am told”. These directions to the managers are coming from the Labor Representatives and quite frankly I feel it’s just stupid. It is another attempt from the company to impede our responsibility to represent our members and quite frankly it will not work and will only make a simple matter become a time consuming problem. They are too narrow sighted to see it. We have been sending emails back and forth for 15 years and now all of a sudden it’s prohibited because it’s union business. What kind of crap is that?

The labor folks do anything to win and justify the company’s position on anything regardless if they know it’s right or wrong. I have had Labor Reps in a grievance meeting admit the company made mistakes and that errors occurred then come back and deny the grievance but off the record offer up some half ass attempt to resolve the issue. Why not admit the error in the response and do the right thing by the employee? Isn’t that what we are all trying to do? Would it not be simpler just to do the right thing? Then they have the audacity to bitch about the number of grievances. Ridiculous!

Which takes us to last week and the “Balloons”, as Our President Malachy put it. When was the last time you have seen grown adults fighting over balloons? He does have a point. First they said it was the slogan “We want our fair share not hot air”. They said “The members must lower them to below the cubicle wall for their own personal viewing pleasure”. Really that’s what they said. In all honesty I could see they may have an issue with the slogan but that does not mean we don’t have a right to express it. But then we sent in blank red balloons and again they said lower them. We asked why? There is no slogan. “Because they are red”. Fine so we sent in blue and white balloons and they said lower those as well and now the truth comes out. Their response was “You can’t display union balloons”.

The company had conference calls with all the department managers who then called in and had meetings with the coaches to instruct them to tell the members to lower the balloons. How much time was wasted their and how much work wasn’t done while they dealt with this “emergency”. These decisions also came from Labor. Mind you while all this was going on all the other balloons flying in the building were not subject to the same rule. Even those balloons that were flying at a coach's desk while he was instructing his team to lower theirs, even those balloons that were given out by the company to employees as rewards for good work. Nothing wrong with those... hmm see a problem here? And again the union has filed a grievance. That is the process and they are upset that we continue to exercise our rights under the contract and the National Labor Relations Act. I don’t see it ending soon but we outnumber them and when we show our solidarity we will win. Show yours!!

I do want to thank all those that worked hard on the kick off event and thank all the members who came and took a few minutes to learn about the other important issues that CWA is working on. I understand it is bargaining time and much of our focus is on that but we must continue to work on the other issues that affect working people as well. We have national issues that CWA has taken the lead on over all the other labor unions to educate our membership as well as the public at large. These issues don’t just affect those in our bargaining unit. Many of our members signed up to learn more at classes we will be providing at the local. Many members signed up to volunteer to help educate others about the other important issues such as healthcare, the Employee Free Choice Act, and Speed Matters. These are important campaigns that will benefit our country as well as those within our Local.

It is important to remember that labor union's work for everyone not just those we represent. If you look at labor history you will see what I mean. A few examples are child labor, minimum wage, safe working conditions, the 40 hour work week, and FMLA. All of these fights were championed by labor unions and when we won these rights it benefitted every working person in the country not just those in the bargaining unit. That is "Our History". There are those who disagree with our “politics” but these things as an example came from electing the right people to represent us. Electing people who understood what the middle class needed and they committed to working to achieve those goals. The changes I mentioned here only came from working with politicians. At this time it is more important then ever and it is "Our Fight". This is why CWA as well as labor in general gets involved with politics. These issues are not solved at a bargaining table but they certainly do have an effect. The biggest example right now is healthcare. Clearly something needs to be done on a national level but in the meantime we will have to fight to keep what we have. That fight will be at the bargaining table and we will need everyone's support to keep those benefits in place. This is especially important for retiree’s as the company has already said they want to go back on their long standing promise to the employee’s and discontinue retiree healthcare. We cannot let that happen.

We also had a convention in June and of course those conventions give us direction and show our leaderships wisdom. I would encourage everyone to read the speeches given by the CWA leadership. I will point out a few thoughts here. Larry Cohen in his speech reminded us that “We faced unprecedented corporate greed—management that saw nothing wrong with CEOs that made five hundred times the pay of a front line worker and then talked about teamwork” that is true today as well, Ed Mueller (according to yahoo finance) is paid 17 million a year. The highest paid CEO in several Midwestern states. For what? I have seen no new direction? No new advances in the telecommunications industry that he has led us in? 17 million and a 3 buck stock price? But he wants to discontinue healthcare for retirees. Unacceptable.

President Cohen also said “We have a window of opportunity this year that we haven't seen in a generation. We have an opportunity to fundamentally change the direction of America…to restore our labor movement, restore the middle class, and give hope to millions.” When has any corporate leader said anything along those lines? They don’t. They either don’t have the wisdom or don’t care. It’s all about the business. Again frankly in my opinion just another version of a narrow-mindedness.

One last quote from President Cohen “We have a $700 billion annual trade deficit, which is helping to send the dollar crashing to record lows and transfer our assets to China and the Middle East. We have the worst credit crunch since the Great Depression and the highest rate of home mortgage foreclosures in decades. Gasoline, home heating oil, food and other vital commodities are at record highs – and still soaring. Real wages are down, and good manufacturing jobs continue to vanish. And there is no coincidence in the fact that the United States has the lowest rate of collective bargaining coverage among the world's economic democracies.”

These are exactly the reasons we as union members must be involved with politics. These are the reasons every one of us has a responsibility to take a stand. These are the reasons that we will continue our fight everyday. It is "Our Future". Our history proves us to be successful and we will be successful this year with our bargaining at Qwest and in our elections in the fall. But we will need your help, we will need your solidarity, we will need you to take a stand.

Remember it’s OUR HISTORY OUR FIGHT OUR FUTURE! Lets do this lets get excited lets stand up for what we believe lets tell everyone one to join us and support us.

Together we can and together we will!