Dec. 10 'Huge Success' in Making Point: Workers' Rights are Human Rights

CWA members swelled the ranks of well over 100,000 union members and supporters who commemorated Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, by demanding collective bargaining and organizing rights for all workers.

They participated in close to 90 actions around the nation ranging from massive demonstrations to small rallies to teach-ins on college campuses and Jobs with Justice workers' rights board hearings.

It was the start of a long-term campaign that will bring together the entire labor movement to educate members about the bargaining and organizing rights crisis, build coalitions with community activists and public officials, gain sponsors for legislation that would make card check organizing and first contract arbitration the law of the land and elect a president and Congress who will stand up for workers' rights.

"There are workers in many sectors who have been struggling to gain a first contract for too many years, because their employers are following an anti-union playbook of delay and stalling tactics," said CWA President Morton Bahr, addressing a lunch time meeting in Cleveland of CWA members soon bargaining with SBC. He spoke of cable companies Comcast and Adelphia, the Chinese Daily News and other "low-road" employers, where workers have been denied the right to form a
union and bargain a contract.

CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen spoke at a rally in Memphis, attended by Graphic Communications International Union members engaged in a fight for fairness and dignity at Quebecor, one the largest printing companies in the world. Workers braved frigid temperatures, and at least 40, after finishing a night shift at a distant Quebecor plant in Tennessee, rode several hours on a bus to the Memphis event. Others attended from as far away as Canada, Brazil and Argentina.

"We are taking on multinational corporations like Quebecor and we can win," said GCIU Secretary-Treasurer Gerald Deneau.

"It's going to take millions of union members to
achieve what we're trying to do," said Cohen, praising the workers' dedication. "We're fighting as one united labor movement."

CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling, after attending a massive rally in Washington, D.C., spoke to elected officials and dignitaries at a luncheon of the National Democratic Institute's Global Women's Forum in Washington. She explained how International Human Rights Day originated from a Universal Declaration of Human Rights initiated by Eleanor Roosevelt and ratified by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948.

"Everyone has the right to form and to join in trade unions for the protection of his interests,' states Article 23. The rights of workers to freely associate, to form unions and to bargain collectively with their employers are internationally recognized," she stressed. "So, why are they suppressed here in our own country?"

Widespread Participation
About 2,000 workers from AFL-CIO unions rallied outside the Labor Department in Washington, D.C., including Easterling, District 2 locals, and officers and employees from CWA's headquarters.

They heard Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) lambaste the Bush administration as being "the most anti-worker, anti-labor administration we have seen" since the National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935. Kennedy pointed out that many of the 8 million workers who stand to lose their overtime pay under new Labor Department rules are veterans of the war against terrorism. "These are patriots, Mr. President. Why do you want to deny patriots their rights?" he asked.

District 1 locals marched with thousands in New York City, where AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, "There are 42 million workers in our country who say they would join a union in an instant if they could, but are prevented from doing that by employers and anti-union elected leaders who have systematically stolen the freedom to organize from workers."

He stressed that, "This hurts workers and it is hurting our country."

Triple Threat
CWA took the lead in organizing three major events.

• About 10,000 workers wore stickers to work in Cleveland proclaiming, "Workers Rights are Human Rights." Events included a workers' rights board hearing hosted by Local 4340, where Adelphia worker Joseph Wargo described an ongoing, yearlong struggle to bargain a first contract. CWA District 4 Vice President Jeff Rechenbach and members of Locals 4309 and 4340 were among a crowd of about 300 listening to the workers' stories.
  
  Adelphia cable workers in Cleveland voted for representation by CWA Local 4340 in September 2002, Wargo explained, but like many of their colleagues around the country they are still struggling to bargain a first contract. Meanwhile the company is pushing to decertify the union.
  
  "How do we know?" Wargo. said "The Adelphia negotiator boasts openly about groups that Adelphia commends for decerting."
  
  Five Adelphia units around the country have decertified under pressure from union-busting consultants and four others fight on, attempting to bargain first contracts.
  
  Demonstrations in Dallas, Texas, and elsewhere brought to light the struggles of Comcast cable workers. Comcast and its predecessors AT&T Broadband and TCI have a 20-year history of failure to bargain in good faith and orchestrating decertification campaigns.
  
  Wargo, who works in the local programming department at Adelphia, detailed a list of tactics the company has used to stall bargaining, including ending sessions abruptly at 5 p.m., canceling bargaining sessions in June and July on a pretext of reorganization, and lying to the bargaining committee about the availability of a company decision-maker.
  
  He had two requests for members of the workers' rights board: that they support a requirement for community programming in conjunction with approval of a cable franchise and, "for all bargaining, especially first contracts, get legislation passed that will put a deadline on the length of time to reach an agreement, to prevent companies stalling to get to a decert."
  
  Workers from the local Plumbers union, Theatrical and Stage Employees, and United Food and Commercial Workers also told the board of their struggles to organize and to bargain, while a Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees member told how much easier it was winning bargaining rights when a local Holiday Inn agreed to card-check recognition.
  
  CWA members from District 4 locals filled three buses outside Local 4340's union hall to attend a rally outside a Marc's store, similar to Wal-Mart, where workers have been struggling for two years to join he UFCW..
  
  "Marc's needs to respect the human rights of its workers," CWA Local 4309 President Brenda Mallory said "Our issues are really the same as theirs. We support all our brothers and sisters."
  
  Both the hearing and the rally were co-sponsored by the Cleveland AFL-CIO and Jobs with Justice, a community action coalition founded with the help of CWA.
  
  "Building coalitions like these are key to our ultimate success in this campaign," Cohen said. "When we struggle as a solitary union, we're 700,000 strong, but when we combine our efforts with the entire AFL-CIO and independent unions there are more than 16 million of us. When you take into account the human rights, civil rights and religious groups that support us, you can add several million more."
  
  Participants on the Cleveland workers' rights board included U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, State Sen. Eric Fingerhut, State Rep. Claudette Woodard, several members of the clergy and prominent educators.
  
  National organizations that support the campaign include the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Human Rights Watch and National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice.
  
  
• In Los Angeles, more than 1,000 workers, led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, marched to Pershing Square for a boisterous rally organized by CWA District 9. Vice President Tony Bixler and District 9 locals turned out in support of workers from the Chinese Daily News, who derided the company's refusal to recognize their union.
  
  Nearly 500 workers gathered in front of the National Labor Relations Board Region 21 office to call attention to the board's failure to act on behalf of the 150 writers, editors, photographers and advertising employees.
  
  The Chinese Daily News workers first contacted TNG-CWA in September 2000, when management canceled a scheduled raise and demanded they sign forms saying they are "at will" employees who could be fired at any time.
  
  Despite a five-month anti-union campaign - featuring a union-busting consultant who equated the union with Chinese Communism, 50-percent raises for selected employees and threat-laden captive audience meetings in the middle of the night - the workers voted 78-63 for representation in March 2001.
  
  The company filed an objection and, after two months of hearings, Region 21 upheld the election. The employer then appealed the decision to the NLRB in Washington. More than two years have passed, and the national board has failed to render a decision.
  
  In July 2002, the NLRB also postponed hearings on 33 unfair labor practice charges the union filed regarding the employer's violation of labor law during the organizing campaign. Those charges are still pending.
  
  "My co-workers and I want an opportunity to improve our lives," said Lynn Wang, reporter and organizer. "I work hard every day for my employer, and the Chinese Daily News should respect my right to form a union and have a voice on the job."
  
  Wang and editor Yun-min Pao were supported at the Los Angeles rally by other AFL-CIO unions and CWA-forged coalitions, including a contingent from APALA, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance. Public officials who endorsed their struggle included state Assembly members Judy Chu, Dario Frommer, Paul Koretz and Mark Ridley-Thomas. State Sen. Joe Dunn and Monterey Park City Vice Mayor Mike Eng.
  
  Kent Wong, director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UCLA, told the audience he and Wang traveled to Taiwan this past summer, with a representative of the AFL-CIO, to solicit international support for the workers.
  
  The rally prompted an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by law professor Julius Getman and Ray Marshall, former U.S. secretary of Labor and now an economics and public affairs professor at the University of Texas at Austin, charging the Bush administration with "hypocrisy" in claiming that collective bargaining and organizing rights are adequately protected by the National Labor Relations Act.
  
  "The rights enunciated almost 70 years ago are constantly challenged and frequently denied," they wrote. "Those who oppose the right of workers to organize and strike have learned to phrase their opposition in the language of liberty and to justify it in terms of the best interests of working people."
  
  Citing captive audience meetings where union organizers are barred and inadequate penalties for employers who fire union organizers, they conclude that today, "The United States has no reason to be proud of its labor relations system and its lack of protection of basic human rights."
  
  
• In Phoenix, District 7 locals joined with Michael McGrath, a former CWA local president, now executive director of the state AFL-CIO, and public officials for a five-hour program highlighting collective bargaining and organizing rights and quality union jobs at Qwest.
  
  About 200 CWAers from Arizona locals, led by District 7 Vice President John Thompson, were among more than 1,000 workers and public officials who took part. The program, at the Orpheum Theatre, focused on "Restoring Every Worker's Right to a Voice@Work."
  
  "Workers should have the freedom to seek better pay, benefits and working conditions without harassment and intimidation from their employer," McGrath said, presaging several workers who told of their difficulties in organizing and bargaining.
  
  CWA Local 7026 President Linda Hatfield, moderator for the event, said she was particularly moved by a roofer's story of how his unit organized a union, went on strike when they could not get a first contract, then saw co-workers who supported the effort fired.
  
  Also, a Transportation Security Administration screener from Sky Harbor Airport related how President Bush banned unionization of her agency by executive order, supposedly in the name of national security. Meanwhile, management places increasing demands on the screeners, who are severely stressed by forced overtime, shorter breaks, and short scheduling.
  
  "Hearing these stories pulls at your heartstrings, knowing how badly they want to have a union and can't," Hatfield said.
  
  Public officials, including State House Democratic Leader John Laredo, Phoenix Mayor-Elect Phil Gordon, Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias, "were shocked at these stories," Hatfield said. Each was invited to speak.
  
  On the positive side, then-Local 7019 President Joe Gosiger, now a CWA representative, joined Pat Quinn, president of Qwest Arizona, on stage to honor the company for "working with the union, in a spirit of service," to bring quality communications services to the state.
  
  But, Gosiger pointed out, outsourcing by AT&T and the banking and insurance industries has had a negative impact on workers' right to organize. He explained that CWA is currently working to get legislation passed in New Jersey and other states that would give consumers the right to know who they are talking to and from where. Many of these jobs have been relocated to India, where workers are taught to use American names and make small talk in English.
  
  The City of Tucson, Maricopa County, Pima County, Gov. Janet Napolitano, and Reps. Raul Grijalva and Ed Pastor all issued proclamations or sent letters affirming workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively.

"Dec. 10 was a huge success," said Bahr. The press responded with coverage from across the country with national Associated Press and Reuters stories, additional articles in publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and countless other news stories, op-eds, national radio, local television reports and editorials.