CWA Battling Corporate Greed at Shareholder Meetings

CWA members will be turning out in force for the Verizon, Idearc and IBM shareholder meetings next week, taking on issues that include out-of-control stock options, corporate governance and executive pay as well as anti-labor policies.

IBM's meeting is Tuesday, April 29, in Charlotte, N.C. Verizon and Idearc both meet May 1; Verizon in Lincoln, Neb., and Idearc in Dallas. Idearc, whose CWA and IBEW-represented workers in New England and New York have been without a contract since last summer, is a directory-advertising company spun off from Verizon in 2006.

CWA and IBEW activists will deliver thousands of proxy votes from worker shareholders to the Verizon meeting. The unions are supporting two shareholder proposals: the first would curb stock options awarded to senior executives and bar current stock options from being re-priced; the second would separate the role of CEO and chairman of the board in the Verizon hierarchy.

Doing so is "fundamental to sound corporate governance," the resolution states, asking, "How can the CEO be his own boss? Directors are responsible for protecting the shareholders' interests – and they must do so primarily by monitoring and evaluating the CEO's performance."

CWA and IBEW, which have spent years battling the company's union-busting at Verizon Wireless and lately at Verizon Business, are also backing a "no confidence" vote against the election of the board of directors.

The unions will hold a press briefing immediately before the shareholders meeting starts, explaining how the company has built a wall between Verizon's unionized landline operations and its rapidly growing non-union areas.

The wall blocks union members "from the high-growth, high-profit segments of the company in Verizon Wireless and its large accounts acquisition from the former MCI, Verizon Business," the unions say in a joint statement. "Over the last five years, union membership has slipped from producing 70 percent of revenues to only 33 percent; substantially weakening workers bargaining power."

At the Idearc meeting, CWA members from Locals 1301 and 1302 will be joined by supportive CWA members from Dallas Local 6171 to leaflet outside and raise questions inside the meeting.  About 700 CWA and IBEW members at Idearc have been working without a contract since last June when the company declared a bargaining impasse – illegally, CWA has charged -- and rolled back benefits, job security and sales commission plans. Both unions have filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

A campaign website, ga.cwa-union.org/idearc, details the company's many bad management decisions that have led the Idearc's stock to plummet by 87 percent in less than a year.

On Tuesday, members of CWA's Alliance@IBM will picket and rally outside the company's meeting in Charlotte, raising worker and retiree concerns about executive pay, off-shoring of jobs, pay cuts and shrinking pensions.

"While IBM employees face a decline in their standard of living and retirees see pension checks evaporate due to lack of cost of living adjustments coupled with increases in medical retirement co-pay, our executives live the life of luxury. Executive greed and bloated compensation needs to be challenged," said IBM employee and Alliance Vice President Earl Mongeon.

Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the Alliance, said members are calling on IBM to halt the shifting of its U.S. jobs to low-cost countries. "At a time when the U.S. economy is in recession and unemployment is rising it is unconscionable to continue to move work offshore," Conrad said. "The Alliance is urging elected officials, community leaders and citizens to call on IBM to halt this destruction of U.S. jobs."