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Briefly...
Oregon's Largest City Backs Organizing Rights
Long known for being progressive, the City Council in Portland, Ore., has unanimously passed a resolution urging Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
Introduced by Commissioner Randy Leonard, former head of the city's Fire Fighters union, the resolution also calls on Congress and the Oregon Legislature to grant farm workers the freedom to form unions.
In a packed meeting room in early March, the council heard testimony from workers, academics and religious leaders. Maribel Paniagua, a janitor fighting for the right to form a union, said she has trouble supporting her family on her $7.70 hourly wages.
"My co-workers and I started to join together to form a union in order to work more hours with better pay and benefits," she said. "Soon after we started, my co-workers at the Rose Garden ... had to go to meetings in a supervisor's office where they were told they could be fired for talking about or joining the union."
Leonard called the changes "necessary and long overdue" and said that for too long "the current laws have been manipulated by some employers to deter employees from organizing and entering into first contracts. This will preserve the rights of workers to bargaining collectively and achieve first contracts with their employers."
New Contract a Victory for SUNY Graduate Students
The Graduate Students Employees Union, representing 4,500 teaching and graduate assistants at 21 campuses of the State University of New York, has overwhelmingly approved a new contract with four base salary increases and a signing bonus.
The SUNY employees, members of CWA Local 1104, had been working without a contract since July 1, 2003. Key elements of the pact include a post-ratification payment of $500, three percentage increases to base salary of 2.5 percent, 2.75 percent and 3 percent, and finally a $500 permanent increase to the base.
Other enhancements include a $2.4 million fund to support recruitment and retention of doctoral students, a $700,000 fund to support the same at four-year colleges, more than $2 million to mitigate the cost of fees charged to graduate students, $550,000 for cost-of-living aid in eight downstate counties, and a professional development fund of $600,000 to support excellence in teaching and research.
"It is a great day for our union," said union Chief Negotiator and Executive Vice President Kathleen Sims. "We are very proud. Our union members have taken our contract to new levels on compensation and operational issues. Our contract mobilization has helped to prioritize educational excellence for all New Yorkers."
CWA Local 1104 President Bob Lilja said the pact "has been a long time in coming. We must give thanks to all members of Local 1104 who have supported our Educational Division and helped them get a good contact."
Frontier Arbitration Thwarts Temporary Hiring
An arbitration decision against Frontier Telephone in Rochester, N.Y., restores the recall rights of about 20 workers laid off in 2003 and then rehired as temporary employees in violation of CWA's contract. Six of those workers remain on the payroll.
"The award could lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for unpaid benefits," Local 1170 Vice President John Pusloskie said.
CWA filed a grievance July 15, 2003, after 11 telecommunications specialists with recall rights were brought back as temporaries to replace regular employees out on disability. The union later filed a second grievance when several cable splicers were also rehired as temps. Both grievances were denied.
CWA argued before the arbitrator that Frontier violated the collective bargaining agreement when it hired temporary employees at a time that regular employees were on layoff with recall rights. Local 7011 President Linda McGrath testified that since 1976 no temporary employees had ever been hired in such circumstances. Tim Wallace, a cable splicer and member of the local who had not been laid off, testified that he observed formerly permanent employees brought back as temporaries.
Arbitrator George Nicolau found for the union that "the company violated (the contract) when it used temporary employees to replace regular employees on leaves of absence or absent on disability."
Retaining jurisdiction in the case for an additional three months, he directed the parties to work out the details of compensation for loss of benefits and for possible violations of seniority recall rights of some workers.
After 144 layoffs in 2003, Local 1170 represents about 650 Frontier Tel workers in the Rochester area whose contract runs through Jan. 31, 2007. Pusloskie said the company is again hiring from the recall list.
CWA Helps Quash Anti-Union Bill in Georgia
Recognizing that legislation can critically affect workers' rights and working families, CWA helped defeat a Georgia bill in March that would have barred public employee unions from directly contributing to any political campaign.
With the assistance of CWA legislative staff, District 3 Vice President Noah Savant, Georgia locals and AFL-CIO mounted a successful lobbying effort, leading the Georgia Assembly to vote the bill down 102-67.
CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling said anti-union activists in Arizona are presently trying to push through a similar bill. "The assault on workers' rights will not end until we have labor-friendly legislators at both the state and federal levels," she said.
The entire AFL-CIO united to defeat the first such state bill, in California, in 1998. Big-business lawmakers have promoted a rash of similar bills since then hoping to quell workers' voice in politics.
Long known for being progressive, the City Council in Portland, Ore., has unanimously passed a resolution urging Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
Introduced by Commissioner Randy Leonard, former head of the city's Fire Fighters union, the resolution also calls on Congress and the Oregon Legislature to grant farm workers the freedom to form unions.
In a packed meeting room in early March, the council heard testimony from workers, academics and religious leaders. Maribel Paniagua, a janitor fighting for the right to form a union, said she has trouble supporting her family on her $7.70 hourly wages.
"My co-workers and I started to join together to form a union in order to work more hours with better pay and benefits," she said. "Soon after we started, my co-workers at the Rose Garden ... had to go to meetings in a supervisor's office where they were told they could be fired for talking about or joining the union."
Leonard called the changes "necessary and long overdue" and said that for too long "the current laws have been manipulated by some employers to deter employees from organizing and entering into first contracts. This will preserve the rights of workers to bargaining collectively and achieve first contracts with their employers."
New Contract a Victory for SUNY Graduate Students
The Graduate Students Employees Union, representing 4,500 teaching and graduate assistants at 21 campuses of the State University of New York, has overwhelmingly approved a new contract with four base salary increases and a signing bonus.
The SUNY employees, members of CWA Local 1104, had been working without a contract since July 1, 2003. Key elements of the pact include a post-ratification payment of $500, three percentage increases to base salary of 2.5 percent, 2.75 percent and 3 percent, and finally a $500 permanent increase to the base.
Other enhancements include a $2.4 million fund to support recruitment and retention of doctoral students, a $700,000 fund to support the same at four-year colleges, more than $2 million to mitigate the cost of fees charged to graduate students, $550,000 for cost-of-living aid in eight downstate counties, and a professional development fund of $600,000 to support excellence in teaching and research.
"It is a great day for our union," said union Chief Negotiator and Executive Vice President Kathleen Sims. "We are very proud. Our union members have taken our contract to new levels on compensation and operational issues. Our contract mobilization has helped to prioritize educational excellence for all New Yorkers."
CWA Local 1104 President Bob Lilja said the pact "has been a long time in coming. We must give thanks to all members of Local 1104 who have supported our Educational Division and helped them get a good contact."
Frontier Arbitration Thwarts Temporary Hiring
An arbitration decision against Frontier Telephone in Rochester, N.Y., restores the recall rights of about 20 workers laid off in 2003 and then rehired as temporary employees in violation of CWA's contract. Six of those workers remain on the payroll.
"The award could lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for unpaid benefits," Local 1170 Vice President John Pusloskie said.
CWA filed a grievance July 15, 2003, after 11 telecommunications specialists with recall rights were brought back as temporaries to replace regular employees out on disability. The union later filed a second grievance when several cable splicers were also rehired as temps. Both grievances were denied.
CWA argued before the arbitrator that Frontier violated the collective bargaining agreement when it hired temporary employees at a time that regular employees were on layoff with recall rights. Local 7011 President Linda McGrath testified that since 1976 no temporary employees had ever been hired in such circumstances. Tim Wallace, a cable splicer and member of the local who had not been laid off, testified that he observed formerly permanent employees brought back as temporaries.
Arbitrator George Nicolau found for the union that "the company violated (the contract) when it used temporary employees to replace regular employees on leaves of absence or absent on disability."
Retaining jurisdiction in the case for an additional three months, he directed the parties to work out the details of compensation for loss of benefits and for possible violations of seniority recall rights of some workers.
After 144 layoffs in 2003, Local 1170 represents about 650 Frontier Tel workers in the Rochester area whose contract runs through Jan. 31, 2007. Pusloskie said the company is again hiring from the recall list.
CWA Helps Quash Anti-Union Bill in Georgia
Recognizing that legislation can critically affect workers' rights and working families, CWA helped defeat a Georgia bill in March that would have barred public employee unions from directly contributing to any political campaign.
With the assistance of CWA legislative staff, District 3 Vice President Noah Savant, Georgia locals and AFL-CIO mounted a successful lobbying effort, leading the Georgia Assembly to vote the bill down 102-67.
CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling said anti-union activists in Arizona are presently trying to push through a similar bill. "The assault on workers' rights will not end until we have labor-friendly legislators at both the state and federal levels," she said.
The entire AFL-CIO united to defeat the first such state bill, in California, in 1998. Big-business lawmakers have promoted a rash of similar bills since then hoping to quell workers' voice in politics.