Feb 29, 2024 - New Tentative Agreement at AT&T Mobility

AT&T Mobility Southwest (Purple)

This week, the CWA District 6 AT&T Mobility Bargaining Team reached an historic tentative agreement with AT&T Mobility Southwest. This agreement will affect approximately 5,000 CWA members spanning Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The agreement will provide a 5 percent raise for employees in 2024 as well as a $1,000 signing bonus and wage increases for multilingual call center employees. Remote workers will now have increased benefits, including a $55 monthly stipend and loss-of-pay protections. AT&T Mobility employees, regardless of title, will now be covered under the Employment Security Commitment, providing greater job security. The agreement also includes improvements to healthcare benefits, retirement benefits, scheduling, and leave. Click here for more details on the tentative agreement.

“This TA was won in part because the Company felt the pressure of our mobilizations,” the Mobilization Team wrote in an email announcing the agreement. “We successfully showed our collective power and supported our bargaining team by taking action across all 5 states of the Purple Mobility contract! Thousands of members mobilized by decorating their workplaces, wearing stickers in support of our issues, making noise and more!”

A contract explanation virtual meeting is being held next week and bargaining unit members will vote on ratifying the agreement.

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Last week, bargainers for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette met with CWA District 2-13 Vice President Mike Davis and Bargaining Chair Jon Remington to discuss the contract for the paper’s advertising workers. The advertising workers, members of CWA Local 14827, along with production workers from CWA Local 14842, members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh (TNG-CWA Local 38061), and members of the Teamsters have been on strike at the company since October 2022.

This was the first bargaining session with any of the striking unions since September 2023. During the session, Vice President Davis expressed his intention to resolve outstanding issues and negotiate a fair agreement and his commitment to maintaining solidarity with the other striking units.

The Post-Gazette strike is the longest-running strike in the U.S. and the longest strike ever in Pittsburgh. Click here to learn how you can support the striking workers.

Last week, CWA President Claude Cummings Jr., along with other CWA members, attended the Biden Administration’s Black Labor Leaders Roundtable to discuss ways to support unions and grow the middle class. The roundtable brought together labor leaders from several unions to meet with Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and other senior members of the Biden Administration.

President Cummings discussed how the Biden Administration can continue working with labor to uplift the voices of all workers, especially Black workers, who still face disparities in pay and equal treatment. He thanked administration officials for supporting and prioritizing the voices of workers and urged them to continue doing what they can to ensure that companies that are receiving federal dollars, be it from infrastructure bills or government contracts, are not using those funds to line the pockets of their wealthy shareholders but are spending them to support good jobs for working people.

AFA-CWA International Vice President and Pride at Work national executive board member Keturah Johnson and CWA Local 3642 member Sebrenda Clifton, who is a Passenger Service Agent with American Airlines, spoke on the transformative power of union membership. Clifton said, “It's about more than just wages and benefits. It's about dignity, respect, and the affirmation of worth in a society that too often overlooks and undervalues our contributions.”

 
Above: CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. attended the Black History Month Labor Roundtable with Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and Sebrenda Clifton, a Passenger Service Agent and member of CWA Local 3642. 

Below: Labor leaders met with White House staff at the Black History Month Labor Roundtable. Pictured below are AFA-CWA International Vice President Keturah Johnson (left) and AFA-CWA Frontier MEC Secretary-Treasurer Toi Scott. 

CWA’s Retired Members Council (RMC) Board met last week to set their 2024 agenda and conduct a swearing-in ceremony for newly elected officers. CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. has made it a priority to ensure that the retirees who helped build this union to make it what it is today are not forgotten. He spoke to the retirees via Zoom and presided over the swearing-in ceremony.

Members of the RMC, though retired, remain dedicated to protecting the benefits they worked a lifetime to achieve. They represent retired members’ concerns with bargaining committees; track social safety net and other critical legislation at the local, state, and federal levels; and keep members informed about company pension and healthcare policies.

The newly elected President of the RMC, Gwendolyn Parker, plans to emphasize member organizing and education. With a major election underway, the RMC will also increase its legislative and political activism. CWA Senior Campaign Lead Tony Tilley gave an impactful presentation on our union’s Legislative and Political program to prepare RMC activists for the upcoming political work. The RMC Board also participated in a training on CWA’s membership database to help them maintain up-to-date contact information for RMC members.

CWA Chief of Staff Sylvia J. Ramos attended the meeting to support the work of the RMC Board and facilitate their goal-setting process. “In today’s environment of companies hiring surplus workers only to lay them off, we have a lot of young retirees who still have a lot to contribute,” Ramos noted. “In some cases, we have people retiring as young as 51 years old. This platform will definitely help utilize the knowledge and experience they still have to offer.”

Click here to see the roster of newly elected RMC officeholders.

 
Chief of Staff Sylvia Ramos (far left) met with members of the CWA Retired Members Council who convened to swear in new officials and learn more about participating in the CWA Legislative and Political program.

The CWA Human Rights Department has launched a new radio show, “Our Power,” a justice-filled hour of talk, solidarity, and worker power.

The first show included a discussion of a recent town hall hosted by CWA Local 3902’s Civil Rights and Equity Committee, which explored how the labor movement can make a difference in the justice system, information on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and a preview of the upcoming CWA Human Rights Conference, which will be held in Houston in August.

The show airs every Thursday from 10 a.m.-11 a.m. ET on station KYOK. Listeners from across the country can tune in at https://kyokradio.org/.

Last week, CWA members, retirees, and community members turned out to voice concerns about AT&T’s attempt to end its obligations to respond to every reasonable request for landline telephone service in California and to offer federal and California LifeLine programs to make service more affordable for low-income households.

According to those who testified at a packed California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) hearing, cellular service is often unavailable in remote locations, where tall trees even block satellite-based telephone service. Landlines, many stated, are the only reliable means of telecommunications in these areas. CWA Local 9413 President Mark Ellis spoke passionately about AT&T’s withdrawal from Nevada and the negative consequences for working-class households.

“Just this week we were reminded of the continued importance of landline telephone service when AT&T’s wireless network suffered an hours-long nationwide disruption,” CWA District 9 Vice President Frank Arce said in a statement on AT&T’s request. “CWA members know that for many Californians, especially our elderly and rural residents, landline service remains the most reliable option. We urge the California Public Utilities Commision to demonstrate its continued commitment to ensuring that every Californian has access to affordable, reliable telecommunications service by rejecting AT&T’s attempt to cut service to our most vulnerable residents.”

CWAers plan to continue to raise their voices on this issue. If the CPUC grants AT&T’s request, many areas of California could be without a voice service provider within six months. Such a reduction in service would put technician and customer service support jobs at risk. The CPUC will host one more in-person hearing and one virtual hearing. For more information on how to participate in these hearings, please click here to visit the CPUC page.

Yesterday, Representative Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) was sworn into Congress after a special election victory powered by CWA members across the country. Rep. Suozzi has been a champion for working families throughout his time in public office, serving as a co-chair of the House Labor Caucus during a prior term.

With consistent, weekly phone banks and a massive turnout at labor walks that boosted voter engagement, CWA members were front and center of the labor movement, which delivered the district for Suozzi. Over an intensive six-week campaign, CWAers made over 50,000 phone calls, knocked on 1,000 doors, and completed 300 volunteer shifts to deliver a decisive 8-point victory. CWAers made this campaign a nation-wide effort, with more than 120 CWA members across the country joining together for a national phone bank. Members even stepped up during an Election Day snowstorm to arrange rides to the polls for 80 voters.

Rep. Suozzi’s election shows the power of working people coming together to make CWAers’ voices heard in the halls of Congress.

 
CWA members made phone calls for Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) to help get out the vote.

IGN Creators Celebrate Union Recognition With Fortnite Livestream

On February 6, a supermajority of editorial and creative workers at Imagine Gaming Network (IGN) announced they were forming a union with the NewsGuild-CWA. Just two weeks later, the IGN Creators Guild won voluntary recognition from parent company Ziff Davis after more than 5,700 supporters signed a petition demanding that the company recognize the union.

To celebrate, members of the IGN Creators Guild organizing committee joined NewsGuild-CWA president Jon Schleuss on the livestream platform Twitch to talk about their path to winning while playing Fortnite.

“People say, 'You have such cushy jobs. You sit at your desk all day and write about video games, so why unionize?'" said Rebekah Valentine, a senior reporter at IGN and member of the IGN Creators Guild organizing committee. "To that I say: But what if things were better? Everybody has the right to ask for better in their workplace."

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Campus Workers in Utah Launch UCWU-CWA Local 7765

On Monday, campus workers at the University of Utah and Utah State University publicly announced their decision to form United Campus Workers of Utah (UCWU-CWA Local 7765). The undergraduate and graduate student workers, staff, and faculty members, plan to address concerns including fair pay, increasing workloads, and inadequate healthcare coverage.

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UCWMS-CWA Local 3565 Participates in Living Wage Week of Action

Two weeks ago, CWAers working at universities in Mississippi came together for the Living Wage Week of Action to highlight the urgent need for pay increases for campus workers in the state. United Campus Workers of Mississippi (UCWMS-CWA Local 3565) members at the University of Mississippi, University of Southern Mississippi, and Mississippi State University all hosted events on their campuses, providing attendees the opportunity to learn about university pay scales that keep campus workers in poverty. The Living Wage Week of Action also coincided with the promotion of UCWMS-CWA petitions for a living wage, as each university chapter is urging community members to take action in support of campus workers’ right to fair pay.

 
UCWMS-CWA workers at the University of Southern Mississippi (left) and the University of Mississippi (right) engage with community members on campus to advocate for a living wage.

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More Organizing News

Over the last month, workers joined CWA at:

• High Country News (Denver Newspaper Guild-CWA Local 37074)
• Fastmail (CWA Local 13000)
• Wells Fargo in Virginia Beach, Va. (CWA Local 2201)
• Delaware Office of the State Bank Commissioner (CWA Local 13101)
• Evansville Courier and Press (TNG-CWA Local 34070)
• UFCW Local 663 (TNG-CWA Local 37002)
• Apruv’d Reviewers Union (CWA Local 7019)
• Security Technicians at ADT, Inc. (CWA Local 7250)