Articles

STRIKE SPEECH

By Ed Osborne

Get your financial house in order now! Contract time is quickly approaching and there are storm clouds on the horizon! Some of you have undoubtedly seen the AT&T memo that discusses their desire to rip 25% of your pay from you. If you have not seen it log on to 3101’s web site, there is a link to view it on our page. This is a wake up call. The biggest bully you have ever dealt with wants a 25% give back, and he wants it from Y-O-U.

Prior to the renewal of the previous contract word spread that the Company had temporary workers on salary held up in hotels ready to step in when we went out. What does this tell us? The Company has deep pockets and can afford to purchase some insurance against a walk out. It also tells us that they had a genuine belief that a significant percentage of craft would actively participate in the strike action, there by significantly hampering their operations.

The Company figures we fall into 3 groups. The first group is the scabs. They are counting that some scabs don’t strike at all. To these individuals, I can only say, “think long and hard”, a scab is a scab is a scab. Crossing the strike line will follow you for the rest of your career. You will always be the one people will shun and talk about you behind your back. So think about it before you cross, scab. The second group is financially unprepared to resist. Corporate America banks on the fact that Americans are notoriously bad savers. If you don’t have your finances in order, it’s way to easy for the Company to get you in order.

The third group, we will call the die hards. This is the group the Company fears and the group that should make up the majority of our ranks. The way the Company hopes to deal with group three is demoralization. Divide and conquer. So don’t let them divide us. Most of us probably have an idea who the scabs will probably be.

They need to be encouraged to come in to the fold now. They need to understand the cost of not supporting their union brothers and sisters. No friends, no conversation, no help on the job, no ride home when your car needs to go to the shop, no invite for a beer after work. Ever!! Scab!!

For my union brothers and sisters in group two, you may be in a financial hole but you still have the ability to resist. You can start a strike fund now and sock away a few thousand dollars. Unfortunately, that won’t get you through a drawn out fight. It’s a good start but not good enough. What some of the other members and myself have done is use the equity built up in our homes to act as our financial cushions. It’s easy; call several banks and shop for a home line of credit. The bank I went with gave me a 20-year, interest only, prime +0% line of credit. It cost me nothing to set it up. It is big enough to cover me for the 6 months that the financial experts say I should have in reserve. It’s not for frivolous things like a cruise. It is there for emergencies and strikes. Another option is to take a loan from your 401K. You pay yourself back the interest from the loan. You can put the pay back on hold for a year, just another option. If any members have other ideas, please pass them on. We need to empower the troops not to be in group two because of failure to plan.

Remember, membership did not get what we have without previous members paying the price. Don’t make it easy for the Company to take it away from you!! Don’t wait; get your financial house in order now! Work on getting 100% union membership, now! Remember, if you sign one of the hold outs, you can collect a recruitment bonus! A little something extra for the strike fund. Imagine, if every member had the ability to resist for 6 months? Could the Company handle 6 months without us? The old saying goes, “If we don’t hang together, we will surely hang separately”!

In Unity,

FUTURES SO BRIGHT?

We have seen many changes in the two years since AT&T has taken control. Everything from new uniforms, re-branding of the vehicles, re-alignment to the “silo’s” of AT&T – San Antonio. A whole new management theme of S.O.P.’s. A lot of management changes, and so on. The more things change, the more things stay the same. We still do the work that makes this Company a financial juggernaut, and still we get no respect. From upper management. In their eyes we are just a drain on their profit potential. Obviously, it is very difficult to find people that are worthy enough to fill the many supervisory vacancies in Brevard County considering that of the 11 crews, 4 are being handled by relievers! That’s better than 30% of Brevard. Imagine the Company’s situation, if these people didn’t step up to help out? Do you think the Company will show any appreciation to those folks when permanent managers are finally placed in those positions? We’ll see, in the meantime we have brought on term employees to begin “the future” of AT&T with “Project Lightspeed”. PLS, as they like to call it. With relievers handling S.T.’s and F.T.’s (both cable repair and construction) and the issues and problems that come along with any large undertaking such as PLS, Brevard could be in over their heads without this assistance from willing “union” employees. How does the Company show their gratitude? By bringing in contractors for DSL troubles and installation!!!! A few months back the Company “let Slip” their summary plan of cutting $15K from about 80% of OUR union brothers and sisters. I’m sure a lot of folks said, “they can’t cut our pay”, and your right!!!! Here in lies the problem, they can’t cut our pay but using PLS as “non-typical” telephony they can begin to ease contractors into our jobs, at the same time letting our members dwindle through natural attrition. Whether through retirement or transfers to other titles these previous positions are not being back-filled. At least half-a-dozen S.T.’s have taken promotional bids recently and have not yet been back-filled. Yet we have contractors taking work from the S.T.’s!!!! When a DSL trouble or S.O. (S.T.’s complete S.O.’s to the NID and the contractor takes it from there) comes in, it automatically goes to the contractors dispatch system; a whole other support group handles these. NOT Union employees of AT&T. We don’t even get an opportunity to dispatch on these; our load control doesn’t even know these tickets exist!!!! “Our” customers, who are paying top dollar for our services, ARE NOT getting top technicians to handle their requests!!!! That’s like paying to see a doctor but examined by the receptionist!! Let’s give our customers what they pay for…highly trained, professional technicians!!

In the next year and-a-half, we have a Presidential election, a contract negotiation, and plenty more curve balls thrown by the Company, and curve balls thrown at us by life itself. We must show our unity in the small battles along with the way to contract time, when the real war starts, and let them know we are together as a union and will strike, if the contract negotiations are not to our liking. With the rising cost of living (gas @ $4/gallon), medical cost skyrocketing, and the introduction of the non-tariffed PLS network, we will accept no less than wage increases reflecting these rising costs. No increase in our benefit premiums, and most importantly the inclusion of all PLS work into Article 14 of our contract as “traditional” telephony!!!! After all higher wages and benefits do us no good without job security. They could promise us the world only to lay us off down the road. We are not a disposable commodity to be chewed up and spit out by a corporate giant that has the means to afford us a good wage and benefits for the great job we do for this same Company every day. We only ask for a return of loyalty shown by highly trained, highly skilled technicians.

Stand United,

Eric Gosnell

THE POOREST OF THE POOR

On Friday, November 30^th, Eric Gosnell, Ed Osborne and I boarded a van sponsored by the Space Coast AFL-CIO to participate in a march and rally in Miami. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Job With Justice organized the action. The march started at the offices of Goldman Sachs and ended at Burger King headquarters.

The following is an article from “The New York Times” printed on Thursday, November 29, 2007, by Eric Schlosser who is the author of “Fast Food Nation”.

The migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida have one of the nation’s most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks, caries and unloads two ton of tomatoes. For their efforts, this holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut.

Florida’s tomato growers have long faced pressure to reduce operating costs; one way to do that is to keep migrant wages as low as possible. Although some of the pressure has come from increased competition with Mexico growers, most of it has been forcefully applied by the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes: American fast food chains that want millions of pounds of cheap tomatoes as a garnish for their hamburgers, tacos and salads.

In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970’s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny – and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Ball and McDonald’s.

This month the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers, announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. Reggie Brown, the executive vice president of the group, described the surcharge for poor migrants as “pretty much near un-American.”

Migrant farm workers have long been among America’s most impoverished workers. Per haps 80 percent of the migrants in Florida are illegal immigrants and thus especially vulnerable to abuse. During the past decade, the United State Justice Department has prosecuted half a dozen cases of slavery among farm workers in Florida. Migrants have been driven into debt, forced to work for nothing and kept in chained trailers at night. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers – a farm worker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla. – has done a heroic job improving the lives of migrants in the state, investigating slavery cases and negotiating the penny-per-pound surcharge with fast food chains.

Now the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages. The organization claims that such a surcharge would violate “federal and state laws related to antitrust, labor and racketeering.” It has not explained how that extra penny would break those laws; nor has it explained why other surcharges routinely imposed by the growers (for things like higher fuel costs) are perfectly legal.

The prominent role that Burger King has played in rescinding the pay raise offers a spectacle of yuletide greed worthy of Charles Dickens. Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. “Florida growers have a right to run their businesses how they see fit,” a Burger King spokesman told The St. Petersburg Times.

Yet the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, Burger King announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should treat chickens and hogs. As for human rights abuses, Burger King has suggested that if the poor farm workers of southern Florida need more money, they should apply for jobs at its restaurants.

Three private equity firms – Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners – control most of Burger King’s stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately, avoiding the subprime mortgage meltdown and, according to Business Week, doubling the value of its Burger King investment within three years.

Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn’t be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million – more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein should find a way to share some of his company’s good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.

There has not been a boycott of Burger King but perhaps the next time you drive through remember the migrant workers and maybe tell them to “Hold The Tomatoes”.

Stand Strong and Stand Together!

Cheryl Comeau

FIRST SHOTS FIRED!!!!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the fight is officially on. AT&T has thrown its first punch against the Union. In a recent Company email it has expressed its disappointment with the Union not giving in to their demands of hiring Premise Technicians. Stating that the Union was “unwilling to negotiate the hiring of Union represented employees” to handle “Project Light Speed”. What they have done instead is to hire contractors to start working “inside DSL” troubles. I should add that apparently, they made these arrangements before the Union voted down the Company proposals, which would coincide with the rapid deployment of such contractors in our area. They began to show their presence in October. What they fail to mention was the open-ended verbiage in which the Premise Technician was able to access x-box and D-Slam locations, which is a direct violation of the working agreement concerning Service Technician job functions. Their spin on things is that the Union didn’t want to come to terms with them hiring technicians to handle customer premise installation and maintenance. The Union was more than willing to entertain these proposals but not under the restrictions AT&T proposed. The pay scale began at $350.00 per week and topped out at $670.00, there were no retirement benefits to go along with this absurd wage scale and any time spent in this job would not carry-over if in the event they became a Service Technician, Outside Plant Technician, etc.

Not to mention the fact that the work they would be performing is already being handled by Service Technicians, and the Company would not guarantee job security for their Service Technicians. In essence, blatantly telling the Union of their intentions of eliminating the Service Technician title!!! The email continued to comment that the “business plan” for them would continue with or without Union approval. This means they will do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals. Up to and including the hiring of contractors to do whatever the Company has in mind. I should also inform the Company contracts out most of its OPT work in the other 13 states this Company operates in. This recent move of hiring contract Premise Technicians is just the first move of many to contract out as much work as they can. They will slide in these Premise Technicians now, moving to eliminate the Service Technician title and it will only get worse from there. Little by little they will dwindle down regular full-time employees to the Company’s delight (not to mention the blue-chip stockholders) of not having to worry about retirement annuities, buy-outs, or health insurance for loyal, hard working employees. It is just a matter of time for them, and time is on their side in the long run.

There are two things I would suggest you consider. First, do not count on your government or your Company to provide you with any compensation once you retire. I think anyone, with 15 or more years to retirement, who is counting on Social Security to help, is going to be disappointed. Counting also on a Company who is so bent on cutting your benefits as an active employee, you can only imagine their disdain to pay an unproductive individual anything! Second, Start your “Strike Fund” now!!!!!! We are less than two years away from a contract negotiation that will attack our wages, benefits and job functions!!!!!

People, I can almost guarantee a strike in our future. You must be prepared, for yourself, and most importantly for your family. It is their future you will be fighting for!! The agreement to negotiate our contract when it expires in August 2009, rather than March/April 2009 when the others expire, is a plus. I say it is a plus only if we stick together on this one. I think AT&T sees us a weak “Southern Union”, that is the only reason they would agree to handle separate contracts one more round.

I believe they will take us for a bunch of weak minded and divided individuals. We need to unite and show them we have the fortitude to withstand all the B.S. they can dish out. Believe me folks they will dish it out up to our eyeballs. We need to show them we are not just a bunch of dumb Southerners. That we will stand up against a Company that disrespects us as human beings wanting nothing more than fair pay and benefits for a job well done.

If you think for one second they will give us fair treatment just ask your supervisor what has been recently stripped from them. If they would treat their management team this way, what respect do you think they would have for us lowly hourly-wage, craft, and Union employees? Again, the only roadblock to corporate greed is the power of organized Union employees. Why do you think China pays such low wages? The answer is NO UNIONS!!!!

People, please think of your children and the world they will be left to live in when huge corporations finally get their way and our beautiful country has only two classes; filthy rich and just plain filthy!!!! Union represented employees in the U.S. has dropped significantly in the last 15-20 years yet Company’s have blamed their inability to make a profit on the cost of labor. At the same time C.E.O.’s are making millions of dollars to run Company’s into bankruptcy. I recently researched Dwayne Ackerman, Bellsouth’s last C.E.O., in 1999 his total income was $3.8 million. In 2004, he made $10.8 million. At the same time Bellsouth’s productivity dropped 6% going from 3^rd in the telecom industry to the bottom in growth potential. His salary almost tripled while productivity dropped! Do you think if your productivity dropped like that you would still have a job! Recently, the Company has claimed a 20% increase since the introduction of ESM. The question I would ask is, “has your wages increased in proportion to your increase of to your increase of productivity? Following their train of thought Ackerman received 250% increase in wages for lowering production, yet we have only received about 20% for raising production. Who is really at fault when large corporations collapse? Those of us who work hard for meager wages, or those at the top who demand exorbitant wages for their ability to run companies into the ground? Those that are also protected under “Golden Parachutes”, guaranteed compensation, or other “get out of jail free” B.S.!!! While us working stiffs get screwed out of our life savings we had invested in the Company we were so loyal to. You folks need to think long and hard on this….If you are not looking out for your family who is?!?!?!?

Our only recourse is in the power of our unified voice saying: “I am Union and with my brothers and sisters I will stand up and demand what is right and fair!!!”

STAND UP OR SHUT UP!

Eric

p.s. These are only my opinions. Your opinion is wanted and needed. Join us at the monthly meetings or at least get online and voice yourself on our new message board at www.cwalocal3101.org. You and only you can make this a better and stronger union.

THE BOTTOM LINE

By this time all of you should have seen the videoconference by our new C.E.O. Randall Stevenson. I hope everyone took one thing from this presentation; this company stands to make a lot of money, period. Then again isn’t that why companies are in business? Of course they are, here in lies the problem. So are we. We attempt to provide our families with the means to live comfortable…roof, shelter, clothing, but we also provide them with medical benefits, retirement plans, college funds, dinner out, a trip to Disney World, (Those of you who know me, know also how hard it is for me to include Disney in anything), summer vacations, be it a long weekend or a week back home with Grandma and Grandpa, sports equipment, dance lessons, and maybe the most important retirement. We dedicate our careers (notice I say careers and not our lives, that is reserved for our family!!!). Spending thirty years as a loyal employee with a company to hopefully retire with a decent pension is not too much to ask. This is also another cutting point for the company. If they can reduce pensions and benefits for retired employees their bottom line again increases. The list is endless. It is our responsibility to provide for all of our families needs, whatever they may be.

So let’s take a look at what AT&T looks at to be successful. You start with a bottom line, this is what the company wants to show as profit to the stockholders. To obtain the highest possible margin is the goal, whether it is through product improvement, marketing, or the most familiar method, reduction in costs. This is where we come in. Our wages and benefits come under fire to achieve these cuts to “improve the bottom line”. Because these business minded folks cannot come up with pioneering new ideas to raise the profits the only though is to cut pay and benefits of the employees that rank lower on the pay scale than they do. How many times have you heard of a C.E.O. taking a pay cut to insure a profit for a company? NEVER?!?!? A few years back we were laying off people (approximately 15,000 hourly employees while our C.E.O. received a $10 million dollar bonus that year for cutting costs!!!!! In the last 15 years C.E.O. pay has risen in such a ridiculous rate that if minimum wage had increased at the same rate it would be better than $24 an hour!!!!! This at the same time as Enron and other companies folding due to poor management leave only the blue-collar workers to suffer from a lifetime of loyalty for naught. The “Big-wigs” walk away with millions while lone-time dedicated employees are forced to continue working through their golden years making minimum wage as a Wal-Mart greeter.

These overpaid C.E.O.’s get to run companies into the ground until they go bankrupt and then get offers from other companies to come and run them!?! When they run out of ideas it’s always “What can we cut from the budget?” The answer is always cut pay and/or benefits from our HOURLY employees. Never the salaried management that just sits there and does whatever is suggested by their superior. It is their objective to make money, as it is ours. Now let’s take a look at how this all works: They want to appease the stockholders with a show of profit each quarter. We want to provide for our families for years to come. They accomplish their goal through technical innovations, advertising, and most importantly controlling expenditures. Face it folks we are the expenditures! We have no one to pass the expenditure down to, to recoup the loss when our pay gets cut. What are we going to do, ask the lawn guy to cut $10 a month off his contract to do our yard? Here are a couple of examples of company’s lust of bottom line over treating their employees fairly; a Ford plant in Michigan was threatening to close unless the union workers agreed to take a pay cut. After being told the plant would definitely close if pay could not be cut, the union convinced their members to accept this cut to save their jobs. After agreeing to the reduction in pay the plant stayed open and the entire management team received a bonus that equaled the pay cut accepted by the workers. In other words we gave and they received. Circuit City fired 1500 of their highest paid hourly employees and then offered them their jobs back at a much lower pay scale; minimum 30% lower wages were being offered. In the speech from our new C.E.O., he talks of Cingular not making its projected numbers for the first quarter. He speaks of “product adjustment” as the key to turning a second quarter profit. In reality what they did was cut the Sales Reps. commission from 75% down to 20% with an incentive plan to make up for lost wages. The problem with the incentive plan is that every customer that walks in must be sold to the hilt for these Reps. to recoup just what they made last year never mind increasing their “bottom Line”. These same employees are in the process of becoming a part of C.W.A. to protect what’s left of their pay and benefits, and also the opportunity to bargain their wages, etc. instead of the company taking away whatever they deemed necessary to fulfill the profit margin demanded by the stockholders.

We, my friends, can think like them also. We have expectations of our wages and benefits. We must supply the basics to our family as much as the company must provide to the stockholders. We must be able to cover the expenses of our “Family Business”. Including, but not limited to the basics, health care, clothing, and housing. I put health care first because that it the most threatened benefit we currently have. I also put “currently have”, because I guarantee the next contract negotiations will put heavy pressure on what is company responsibility and what is a personal responsibility. If the new AT&T can improve the profits at the expense of you they wouldn’t think twice about it. We have seen the increase of our property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, gas prices, and inflation in general. WE need our wages to reflect the increase of our cost of living. We also must keep ourselves in the black, because we don’t get these “golden Parachutes”, stock options, etc. and end up losing everything we worked for to the creditors. We also have to provide for our spouses in case something tragic happens, we must provide for our children’s future, as college tuition has doubled in the last several years. We have our “business Plan” in place also and this money!!

Corporate greed is slowly but surely eliminating the middle class of our society. How can you get from low gear to high without the middle gears? The answer is you can’t. I guarantee corporate America is looking for a way. The only way we can get this freight train to even slow down is through the power of organized bargaining. They are able to cut costs through the “power of purchase”. The more they contract to purchase the cheaper the price. Our power is in the “collective bargaining” power produced by being involved in a union. Our union is the voice for 300,000 employees to demand what is right and fair for us. Better wages and benefits provided by the company to those of us who “make it happen” is not a lot to ask. Considering our new C.E.O. considers the I-Phone a multi billion dollar deal for the company along with long-distance and u-verse(IPTV). Also speaking of buying an Italian local provider with a “modest” investment of $2 Billion dollars!!!! $2 billion, a modest investment? Aren’t you worth a “modest” investment of guaranteed wages and benefits costing less than that? This company has plenty of money and the potential to make billions more, we don’t want it all, just our fair share. Just enough to keep our “family business” in the black!!!

Love it or leave it, unions are the only thing that keeps this country from being two classes, rich or poor!!! I ask of you stand up for your family, come to the monthly membership meetings, become a voice in your family’s future, know that with your voice joined to thousands of others we can succeed, we can “live happily ever after”. We can all live in the black!!! One thing is for sure, if we don’t have support we shall surely fall!! I am writing these articles because I firmly believe to accomplish what I have promised my family will only come about with the support of everyone that I work with. It will take us all to stand together to succeed against a corporate giant like AT&T. It is up to us to decide our future!!!!!

Stand Up,

Eric