WE ARE WORKERS

NEW MEXICO

While Midwestern governors attacked collective bargaining rights, New Mexico’s newly sworn-in governor found her own way to grab power and attention: She fired two of the three members of her state’s Public Employee Labor Relations Board, effectively killing it.

In a matter of weeks, she’d lost big — at the state Supreme Court and the court of public opinion thanks to CWA and a coalition of unions that filed a lawsuit, lobbied and rallied against the power grab.

The Court unanimously told Gov. Susana Martinez she’d overstepped her authority. The ruling ordered her to reinstate the fired labor board members and stay out of the board’s business, which includes executive branch cases. In fact, 17 of the 43 cases pending when Martinez shut down the board involved her office.

CWA represents more than 4,000 public workers in New Mexico, who are still fighting the kind of attacks on pensions and rights that workers face in many other states. But the court victory was a huge morale booster, and workers public and private, union and non-union, celebrated. As Local 7076 EVP Sue Wenzel put it: “We showed what we can accomplish when we stick together.”

MISSOURI

Republican lawmakers showed up at Missouri’s capitol in January with a wish list of anti-union, anti-worker bills. They had little to show for it when they returned home in May, a huge victory for CWAers and allies.

The coalition kept a phone bank going until the legislature’s final hours, blocking a bill that would have stopped payroll deduction of public workers’ union dues. A right-to-work bill had died earlier, and bills on project labor agreements, prevailing wage laws, even an attempt to roll back child labor laws — were among many that failed.

“We feel like we stopped a speeding train that was headed right at us,” said Bradley Harmon, president of CWA Local 6355, which represents 7,000 state workers.

Thousands of people, from CWA and other unions, retirees, students and progressive allies, rallied in force at the state capitol early in the session. When CWA members headed back to Jefferson City for Lobby Day they were joined by the Sierra Club and the NAACP. Coalition members later began knocking on doors and making phone calls, ultimately routing 5,000 calls to lawmakers from voters angry about the attacks on workers.

“The relationships we’re building are fantastic,” Harmon said. And he knows that’s critical because, “We anticipate that we will have to fight every one of these fights again next year.”

OHIO

Good Jobs. Strong Communities: You can’t have one without the other. That’s the message that Ohio CWA members and a diverse, growing coalition of allies are hammering home as they fight to overturn the state’s new law stripping collective bargaining rights from public workers.

Their high-octane campaign began with overflow protest crowds at the state capitol as Republican leadership rushed Gov. John Kasich’s anti-union bill through the Legislature. And that was just the beginning. Rallies and marches are keeping the media and public focused on how much is at stake, and a petition campaign for a referendum on the bill is in full swing.

Standing-room-only training sessions taught CWA members and hundreds of other activists how to legally collect petition signatures. We have until June 30 to submit 231,000 valid signatures for a November referendum that will let voters decide the fate of the law. More than 214,000 people signed in just the first month, including a Republican state senator who voted against the bill.

If polls are any indication, Kasich and his anti-union agenda are in trouble: In May, 54 percent of Ohioans surveyed said the law should be repealed, with only 36 percent wanting to keep it.

The CWA-founded coalition, “Stand Up for Ohio: Good Jobs and Strong Communities,” is reaching out all over the state. Martin Miller, a Local 4322 member and municipal public works employee said it’s a concept people seem to understand. “Without collective bargaining, there will be an immeasurable ripple effect of negative consequences on middle class as well as our communities,” he said. “We are all connected in more ways than people realize.”

FLORIDA

Florida’s constitution protects collective bargaining rights, but that didn’t deter the Republican super-majorities in the state legislature. Taking a death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach, lawmakers spent the first four months of 2011 in a seemingly endless attack on workers’ rights and benefits.

In both the House and Senate, the GOP had more than enough votes to pass any bills it wanted. But CWA members and other union activists never gave up. Their solidarity and tireless work at the capitol stopped Republicans from voting in lockstep, preventing two major anti-union bills from becoming law.

One bill would have ended automatic payroll deduction of public workers’ union dues and another aimed to decertify bargaining units that fall below 50 percent active membership.

In the end, the collective voice of police, firefighters, teachers, other public workers and private unions in the coalition was too much for lawmakers to ignore.

We know we’ll be fighting the battle again next January, and we will be ready. “The strength of our unity coalition, our mobilization to educate our members and our elected representatives, and the relationships we’ve built with worker-friendly Republicans paid off,” said CWA Local 3179 President Steve Sarnoff. “We’ll continue to build our power and redouble our efforts.”

NEW JERSEY

Slash. Cut. Privatize. From state services and jobs to pensions and health care, that’s New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s agenda for public employees and the people they serve.

It’s a huge battle on many fronts, but CWA’s 40,000 state workers are veterans. With strong coalitions of labor and other allies, they are refusing to be bullied. They march, rally, lobby, testify and aggressively refute the lies and myths about public employees that Christie and anti-worker lawmakers pedal.

CWA members already make significant contributions to their health care and pensions — in fact, for most of the last 17 years, the only money going into the pension fund has come from workers.

CWA has done exhaustive studies and proposed innovative solutions for efficient state programs and services, and workers’ benefits. Most recently, the union put forth a groundbreaking health care proposal that would save New Jersey taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Not only has Christie ignored it, he’s refusing to bargain with CWA over health care. The current state worker contract is set to expire June 30. CWA filed charges with the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission in May, and newspaper editorials told Christie that CWA members deserve better.

Newark’s Star-Ledger, for example, praised CWA as “a responsible partner” whose state-worker members “have a history of showing respect for the taxpayer by agreeing to freeze wages and contribute to their health care premiums.” The paper urged the governor to show CWA members the same respect.

WISCONSIN

When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced his intention to strip collective bargaining rights from public workers — and threatened them with the National Guard if they didn’t like it — he set off a firestorm of outrage that was soon getting worldwide attention.

For weeks, union members, non-union workers, students, retirees, even angry Republicans, rallied by the thousands inside and outside the statehouse. As the GOP first attempted to push through Walker’s bill, the Senate’s 14 Democrats left the state to prevent a quorum and stop the vote.

As the Democrats tried to negotiate from a distance, Republicans maneuvered to pass the bill without a quorum or a proper hearing. In late May, a state judge ruled they’d broken the public meetings law, and that the new anti-union law was void.

Hearings and appeals continue and the law’s fate is still up in the air. Meanwhile, recall elections are scheduled beginning July 12 for six Republican senators who voted for the bill.

CWA Local 4621 Vice President Betsy LaFontaine says, “Republicans declared war on the middle class and with this recall campaign we are fighting back and we are going to win.”

NEW ENGLAND

Working families in three New England states don’t have to look far to see what a difference a governor makes.

In Vermont, Governor Pete Shumlin has signed the country’s first single-payer universal health care law, saying it’s time “to treat health care as a right and not a privilege.” CWA members lobbied, testified and rallied for the new law.

In New Hampshire, Governor John Lynch vetoed and strongly condemned a “right to work” (for less) bill passed by the GOP-controlled legislature, whose leaders are still trying to gather enough votes to override the governor. Lynch obliterated arguments for the anti-union law, saying it would only hurt New Hampshire. As a former CEO and now seven years as governor, “I have never seen the so-called right-to-work law serve as a valuable economic development tool,” he said.

Then there’s Maine. Pursuing anti-union legislation, including “right to work” and attempts to roll back child labor laws, wasn’t enough for new Governor Paul LePage. He picked a fight that put him in the national news by ordering the removal of a Labor Department mural depicting workers and the state’s labor history. The mural was “not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals,” the governor’s spokesman said.

LePage continues to pursue his anti-worker agenda as aggressively as ever, to the point of interfering in New Hampshire’s business. He has publicly called for the neighboring state legislature to override Lynch’s right-to-work veto. Meanwhile he’s pushing Maine’s legislature to pass a bill ending payroll deduction of union dues. On June 2, 600 union members and their allies protested at the statehouse.

Those allies included the mayor of Lewiston, Maine, who appealed directly to LePage: “Governor, who was born in my hometown, if it is about people before politics, these are the people you need to be supporting.”

INDIANA

It took the collective voice of angry voters and the courage of legislators who left Indiana for five weeks. But ultimately, Republicans dropped a so-called “right to work” bill and made other concessions in their anti-worker agenda.

CWA members were among thousands of people who filled the Indiana statehouse in the early days of the legislative session, sending a strong message to lawmakers and Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Daniels tried to drive a wedge between public and private employees. He was even quoted as calling public workers “the privileged elites.”

But as Local 4900’s Angie Schritter described, Daniels failed. “I was fortunate to be part of the rallies and to see all of my brothers and sisters, union and non-union unite in this fight,” she said. “My neighbors, my friends, all of us had the same fears. This isn’t just a union fight, it’s a middle-class fight.”

In late February, 39 Indiana House Democrats took a page from the “Wisconsin 14” and left their state to prevent Republicans from ramming anti-worker bills through the legislature. With a deal in hand, they returned at the end of March, greeted by hundreds of grateful constituents saying, “Thank you.”

COLORADO

With just three days left in a legislative session that had largely been free of the workers’ rights battles being waged in other states, Colorado’s GOP-led House slipped in a bill that would end collective bargaining for public employees.

Even though the state’s Democratic-led Senate was unlikely to follow suit, CWA and other unions weren’t taking anything for granted.

For those three days, the statehouse halls were filled with activists having “heated discussions” with representatives and their staffs. “All of us were collectively hammering them nonstop,” CWA Local 7777 Legislative-Political Director Sheila Lieder said.

But it may well have been two earlier trips to the capitol by 20 CWA members from Pueblo that saved the day. Visiting their local representative, Republican Keith Swerdfeger, they talked to him about bills CWA supported or opposed.

When Lieder approached him during those final three days, he remembered the visits and she said, “Do I need to get them back up here a third time?” Swerdfeger, a contractor who uses union labor, ultimately made it clear to House leadership that he would vote “no. That meant the House, split 33-32 in favor the GOP, would be a vote short.

“It goes to show how important our personal contact with legislators is, and what we can accomplish when we never give up,” Local 7777 President Lisa Bolton said.