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At Sprint and Aliant, Mobilization Makes the Difference
Contracts covering 5,000 Sprint Corp. workers expire this year and, so far, it's been tough bargaining for members of CWA Local 3672 in Hickory and Madison, N.C.
But CWAers are demonstrating, mobilizing and getting their message about Sprint's greedy tactics to the public. Some 190 workers in North Carolina are covered by the agreement that expired the end of May. Other Sprint negotiations this year include operations in Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, Pennsylvania and another in North Carolina with 1,500 workers.
T.O. Moses, CWA vice president for telecommunications, said Sprint is demanding the right to contract out all work, in addition to seeking continued excessive overtime and increased health care cost shifting.
Worse, Sprint is demanding that in order to receive any severance package from the company, an employee must agree that he or she won't file any sort of claim against Sprint, Moses noted. Sprint is looking to employees to waive all legal rights, under federal, state and local laws, from the Family and Medical Leave Act to the Fair Labor Standards Act to laws banning age discrimination, Moses noted. CWA attorneys are reviewing Sprint's proposed waiver; similar attempts by other companies to force workers to give up their workplace and employment rights have been found to be illegal.
Meanwhile, CWA and members of Local 7470 are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to deny Alltel Corp. the "price cap waiver" it seeks in its bid for Aliant Communica-tions, the Nebraska-based telephone company. A decision by the FCC is expected soon.
Despite a major campaign by local consumers and workers opposed to the merger, including hundreds of phone calls to the Nebraska Public Service Commission, state regulators gave their approval to the deal.
CWA has called on the FCC to reject Alltel's takeover bid because of the serious harm it would cause consumers and rate payers in Nebraska, "who would experience a serious deterioration in the quality of local telephone service and delayed deployment of advanced networks and services."
CWA also pointed to Alltel's pattern of upstreaming revenues from local telephone companies to subsidize other non-regulated operations and its practice of cutting employees and employee benefits in the companies it acquires. CWA represents some 700 workers at Aliant and another 700 at Alltel.
But CWAers are demonstrating, mobilizing and getting their message about Sprint's greedy tactics to the public. Some 190 workers in North Carolina are covered by the agreement that expired the end of May. Other Sprint negotiations this year include operations in Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, Pennsylvania and another in North Carolina with 1,500 workers.
T.O. Moses, CWA vice president for telecommunications, said Sprint is demanding the right to contract out all work, in addition to seeking continued excessive overtime and increased health care cost shifting.
Worse, Sprint is demanding that in order to receive any severance package from the company, an employee must agree that he or she won't file any sort of claim against Sprint, Moses noted. Sprint is looking to employees to waive all legal rights, under federal, state and local laws, from the Family and Medical Leave Act to the Fair Labor Standards Act to laws banning age discrimination, Moses noted. CWA attorneys are reviewing Sprint's proposed waiver; similar attempts by other companies to force workers to give up their workplace and employment rights have been found to be illegal.
Meanwhile, CWA and members of Local 7470 are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to deny Alltel Corp. the "price cap waiver" it seeks in its bid for Aliant Communica-tions, the Nebraska-based telephone company. A decision by the FCC is expected soon.
Despite a major campaign by local consumers and workers opposed to the merger, including hundreds of phone calls to the Nebraska Public Service Commission, state regulators gave their approval to the deal.
CWA has called on the FCC to reject Alltel's takeover bid because of the serious harm it would cause consumers and rate payers in Nebraska, "who would experience a serious deterioration in the quality of local telephone service and delayed deployment of advanced networks and services."
CWA also pointed to Alltel's pattern of upstreaming revenues from local telephone companies to subsidize other non-regulated operations and its practice of cutting employees and employee benefits in the companies it acquires. CWA represents some 700 workers at Aliant and another 700 at Alltel.