Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
Locals Gear Up to Distribute Relief Funds
As CWA locals in the Gulf region got ready this week to help members tap the union's Disaster Relief Fund for aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, District 3 Vice President Noah Savant surveyed the devastated New Orleans area by air.
"Television doesn't do it justice," Savant said. "Just blocks and blocks and blocks of residential houses and businesses totally underwater. Parts of Interstate 10 under water. Vehicles - thousands - left abandoned on the freeway, and at the Superdome and Civic Center, tons of trash left behind by the evacuees."
Savant flew Sept. 6 with Bell South officials in a helicopter 400 feet above the disaster area. "Even that high up, you could still smell the stench," he said.
District 3 has been working closely with Bell South and Cingular, the two largest employers in the Gulf Coast area, to make sure employees are located and cared for.
As of Sept. 8, Bell South said it still had not accounted for 118 of its employees.
Members and retirees who have lost their homes, cars or other essentials can apply for aid through CWA's Disaster Relief Fund. Delegates to the CWA convention in Chicago last week voted to direct up to $4 million in funds to Katrina relief and members visiting the CWA website had donated more than $37,000 as of Sept 8. Verizon employees and their families can follow a link to the company's foundation, which is providing matching donations.
CWA members at Verizon are also volunteering to work the phones Friday night, Sept. 9, during a national telethon for Hurricane Relief that will be broadcast on all major networks.
Details about how and where to apply for CWA disaster funds are on the union's website. Follow the link on the homepage. Funds will be available through the locals listed. Some of the locals are near the disaster areas; others are in cities where displaced members and retirees have been relocated, including Houston and San Antonio. More locals may be tapped to help as the need arises, CWA leaders said. Savant's tour on Sept. 7 included a trip to a tent city in Baton Rouge, La., one of five set up by the company in Louisiana and Mississippi to provide food, shelter, showers and services to employees and their families displaced by the flooding.
He brought encouragement to workers from Covington and Slidell. "They were there with their families. They had lost everything," he said. "Everybody I've talked to, once they've secured their families, they want to go back to work and be useful. It's amazing, the resilience of these folks."
The saddest case Savant encountered was a Bell South worker from New Orleans who had been trapped in his house with his wife. "They tried to swim out. He lost his grip on her and she drowned," he said.
Meanwhile, the District 3 office has been working closely with Cingular officials to locate, shelter and find work for about 800 workers - the bulk of its employees affected by the hurricane - who had to abandon its Ocean Springs, Miss., call center.
Cingular was erecting a tent city in Ocean Springs for its workers with meals, showers, a day care center and counseling through its employee assistance program. About 300 workers had reported to Ocean Springs, and a spokesman for the company said "all but a handful" have been accounted for. While that call center has not yet reopened, the company is trying to find temporary or permanent work for its displaced employees in retail stores, in one of its other call centers in Lafayette, La., Memphis or Nashville, Tenn., or other locations.
District 3 and Cingular also are discussing a joint funding match to help the Cingular families affected by the disaster, Savant reported.
CWA Representative Ron Tyree said telephone exchanges along the Mississippi Gulf Coast as well as those covering Vicksburg, Nachez, Meridian and Hattiesburg are still out. He's heard very little from locals, except from Local 3519 President Ernie Johnson, who said all nine of his executive board members in the Ocean Springs area "lost everything." The power in at least half of Jackson, the state capital, was still out, Tyree said.
Brenda Scott, president of the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees/CWA Local 3570, said about 700 members of her local work for the departments of Health, Human Services and Corrections in the southern part of the state, many at a large correctional facility near Hattiesburg.
"There are no phones from there, south," she said. "I'm just waiting to hear from them."
"Television doesn't do it justice," Savant said. "Just blocks and blocks and blocks of residential houses and businesses totally underwater. Parts of Interstate 10 under water. Vehicles - thousands - left abandoned on the freeway, and at the Superdome and Civic Center, tons of trash left behind by the evacuees."
Savant flew Sept. 6 with Bell South officials in a helicopter 400 feet above the disaster area. "Even that high up, you could still smell the stench," he said.
District 3 has been working closely with Bell South and Cingular, the two largest employers in the Gulf Coast area, to make sure employees are located and cared for.
As of Sept. 8, Bell South said it still had not accounted for 118 of its employees.
Members and retirees who have lost their homes, cars or other essentials can apply for aid through CWA's Disaster Relief Fund. Delegates to the CWA convention in Chicago last week voted to direct up to $4 million in funds to Katrina relief and members visiting the CWA website had donated more than $37,000 as of Sept 8. Verizon employees and their families can follow a link to the company's foundation, which is providing matching donations.
CWA members at Verizon are also volunteering to work the phones Friday night, Sept. 9, during a national telethon for Hurricane Relief that will be broadcast on all major networks.
Details about how and where to apply for CWA disaster funds are on the union's website. Follow the link on the homepage. Funds will be available through the locals listed. Some of the locals are near the disaster areas; others are in cities where displaced members and retirees have been relocated, including Houston and San Antonio. More locals may be tapped to help as the need arises, CWA leaders said. Savant's tour on Sept. 7 included a trip to a tent city in Baton Rouge, La., one of five set up by the company in Louisiana and Mississippi to provide food, shelter, showers and services to employees and their families displaced by the flooding.
He brought encouragement to workers from Covington and Slidell. "They were there with their families. They had lost everything," he said. "Everybody I've talked to, once they've secured their families, they want to go back to work and be useful. It's amazing, the resilience of these folks."
The saddest case Savant encountered was a Bell South worker from New Orleans who had been trapped in his house with his wife. "They tried to swim out. He lost his grip on her and she drowned," he said.
Meanwhile, the District 3 office has been working closely with Cingular officials to locate, shelter and find work for about 800 workers - the bulk of its employees affected by the hurricane - who had to abandon its Ocean Springs, Miss., call center.
Cingular was erecting a tent city in Ocean Springs for its workers with meals, showers, a day care center and counseling through its employee assistance program. About 300 workers had reported to Ocean Springs, and a spokesman for the company said "all but a handful" have been accounted for. While that call center has not yet reopened, the company is trying to find temporary or permanent work for its displaced employees in retail stores, in one of its other call centers in Lafayette, La., Memphis or Nashville, Tenn., or other locations.
District 3 and Cingular also are discussing a joint funding match to help the Cingular families affected by the disaster, Savant reported.
CWA Representative Ron Tyree said telephone exchanges along the Mississippi Gulf Coast as well as those covering Vicksburg, Nachez, Meridian and Hattiesburg are still out. He's heard very little from locals, except from Local 3519 President Ernie Johnson, who said all nine of his executive board members in the Ocean Springs area "lost everything." The power in at least half of Jackson, the state capital, was still out, Tyree said.
Brenda Scott, president of the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees/CWA Local 3570, said about 700 members of her local work for the departments of Health, Human Services and Corrections in the southern part of the state, many at a large correctional facility near Hattiesburg.
"There are no phones from there, south," she said. "I'm just waiting to hear from them."