Resolution: 71A-09-04
Approved: June 22, 2009
For the last 18 months, working families have suffered through the most challenging economic environment since the 1930s. In May 2009, the national unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent with over 14.5 million workers out of a job.
Not only is the economic downturn the most severe since the Great Depression, employers are wielding their economic power to reverse years of contract gains. CWA- represented employees see this behavior in private and public sector, big and small companies, service and manufacturing companies. This is true both in the United States and Canada. Workers without union representation and without collective bargaining coverage are being hit even harder.
AT&T is among the most profitable companies in the world, and nearly 100,000 of our members have been working since April 4 without a contract. We support the unity of those members and retirees and their fight against cuts and for a higher standard of living.
In the newspaper industry, where five CWA employers have filed for Chapter 11 protection, employers are forcing furloughs and wage cuts on TNG-CWA members. In June 2009, management at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked employees to take a 23 percent cut over the course of a three-year contract. Also in June 2009, management at the Boston Globe imposed a 23 percent wage cut on TNG-CWA members. Several employers are demanding that local unions reopen contracts in mid-term.
Job loss in manufacturing – with total employment down 30 percent since January 2001 – has had a consequent impact on collective bargaining and IUE-CWA-represented employees. At Dresser Rand, an oil drilling supplier that has flourished with the fortunes of the oil and gas industry, management eliminated retiree health care and unilaterally eviscerated fifty years of work rules in 2007 and 2008. At Momentive Performance Materials, employees’ wages were cut by 25 percent in January 2009. In the automobile industry, General Motors appears in June 2009 to be using bankruptcy to renege on funding retiree health benefits for 27,000 IUE-CWA retirees.
At National Public Radio, management forced NABET-CWA-represented employees to accept in April 2009 a net reduction in total compensation in excess of $16,000 per employee on the sole basis of budgetary projections – with no protection in the event the projections were flawed.
Negotiations for 2,500 NABET-CWA members working at NBC Universal in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Burbank, CA have taken place against a backdrop of increasingly hostile behavior from management. The company is determined to scuttle a 75-year relationship by insisting on proposals that include gutting the seniority system and removing a number of union jobs from the bargaining unit.
The slashing of wages and benefits is threatening middle-class jobs at precisely the same time President Obama is seeking to stimulate the economy. Not only does employer behavior threaten CWA members, it threatens the nation’s economic recovery. Solidarity within the union and across the labor movement is now more important than at any other time in recent memory.
Two recent settlements show how solidarity strengthens the union in tough economic times. New Jersey public sector workers demonstrated the concrete benefits of solidarity in June 2009, when, through mobilization, member education, and outreach, public sector locals reached an agreement that provides job protection for CWA members and preserved the integrity of collective bargaining.
Likewise, in May 2009, California newspaper employees reached a first contract at the Bay Area Newspaper Group after first a denial of recognition to the unit, then a year of organizing that involved firings, then a difficult year of bargaining aggravated by the deteriorating financial condition of the parent company MediaNews. This gain could only take place because of the commitment of union activists to member communication and education sand help from an adjacent CWA local.
Resolved: In response to the attacks we all face at the bargaining table, CWA members must continue to stand strong and unified in support of each other’s collective bargaining regardless of industry, sector, or region.
Resolved: CWA will join together in solidarity with other unions, Jobs with Justice, progressive elected officials, and other allies to foster coalitions that support our collective bargaining agenda; build public understanding that slashing workers’ wages, benefits, and jobs will not lead our countries out of the current recession nor re-build the middle class; and support public policies that improve the standard of living and collective voice of working people.