More parenting videos on JuiceBoxJungle
More parenting videos on JuiceBoxJungle
Here is the latest Unity@ATT newsletter.
Below is a link to download the PDF. Due to some technical difficulties, it's a large file (3.8 M). We'll try to post a smaller file later in the day. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Also, watch AT&T's video, Invest in America's Future, on YouTube and add your comment! Let 'em know that laying off thousands, raising shareholder dividends, cutting health care for employees, increasing executive bonuses, and trying to end retiree benefits for future employees IS NOT investing in America! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGF8xur9U-Y
(You have to be a member of YouTube or sign up before you can comment.)
This time, it's AT&T. In contract negotiations with CWA, the company keeps pushing for cuts in quality jobs, health care benefits, and standard of living increases.
The contract has expired, and CWA's bargaining committees are working nonstop to try to reach an agreement with AT&T. But the company won't budge. We need 10,000 signatures on our petition of support in the next week to show AT&T that the whole union is mobilized behind our bargaining teams.
Will you sign?
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/attdowhatsright/xkbigskrh7wbm63i?
AT&T claims that these cuts are necessary because of the poor economy. They've even had the nerve to compare telecom to the auto industry, even though telecom continues to expand and remain profitable. Just last year, AT&T made $12.9 billion in profits -- almost a billion more than the previous year.
AT&T can and should be a leader in supporting quality middle class jobs and benefits. That makes communities and our economy stronger. Instead, AT&T wants to increase profits by taking money out of the pockets of its workforce and even its retirees.
We've shown the company how to save money without massive cost-shifting; yet their only objective is to make workers pay more. Clearly, AT&T is looking for scapegoats, not solutions.
Tell AT&T to do the right thing -- sign our petition urging the company stop trying to cut jobs and benefits:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/attdowhatsright/xkbigskrh7wbm63i?
Fortune Magazine recently named AT&T the world's Most Admired Telecom Company. In response, the company's chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said, "This honor is a real tribute to the competitive drive, the passion to serve and the innovative spirit that defines the people of AT&T."
But the company's actions speak louder than its words. If it really cares about its employees, AT&T will stop trying to squeeze the wage increases and benefits they've earned out of them, and start supporting more quality jobs, a better standard of living, and real health care reform.
The current contract negotiations with AT&T are a critical moment for our union, for workers across the country, and for the U.S. economy. In these tough times, the best thing we can do is strengthen American workers and the middle class -- and that means ensuring there are more quality jobs with good wages and health care for all.
Show AT&T that CWA is standing strong -- sign our petition right now:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/attdowhatsright/xkbigskrh7wbm63i?
In solidarity,
Annie Hill| April 6, 2009 |
While it isn't worth responding line-by-line to the Company's self-serving "Labor Update," we do need to address one of the company's outrageous claims on health care:
"Union-represented Core wireline employees pay similar amounts for their health care as union workers at the Big 3 automakers pay—and it's clear what those sorts of unsustainable costs have done to America's auto industry."
This is the lowest kind of scare tactic: "If you don't let us slash your health care benefits, we'll end up like the auto industry!" It's incredible that AT&T management is trying to draw a parallel between a successful and expanding telecom company and the Big 3. AT&T posted profits of $12.9 billion for 2008 and is on track for solid growth this year.
We've shown the company how to save money without massive cost-shifting; yet their only objective is to make us pay more. Clearly, AT&T is looking for scapegoats, not solutions.
Read CWA's press release in response to AT&T's outrageous comparison to auto.
A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.
A lockout may happen for several reasons. When only part of a trade union votes to strike, the purpose of a lockout is to put pressure on a union by reducing the number of members who are able to work. For example, if a group of the workers strike so that the work of the rest of the workers becomes impossible or less productive, the employer may declare a lockout until the workers end the strike.
Another case in which an employer may impose a lockout is to avoid slowdowns or intermittent work-stoppages. Occupation of factories has been the traditional method of response to lock-outs by the workers' movement.
Other times, particularly in the United States, a lockout occurs when union membership rejects the company's last and final offer at negotiations and offers to return to work under the same conditions of employment as existed under the now expired contract. In such a case, the lockout is designed to pressure the workers into accepting the terms of the company's last offer.
The term lockin refers to the practice of physically preventing workers from leaving a workplace. In most jurisdictions this is illegal but is occasionally reported, especially in some developing countries.In the United States, under Federal labor law, an employer may only hire temporary replacements during a lockout. In a strike, unless it is an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike, an employer may legally hire permanent replacements. Also, in many U.S. states, employees who are locked-out are eligible to receive unemployment benefits, but are not eligible for such benefits during a strike.[citation needed]
For the above reasons, many American employers have historically been reluctant to impose lockouts, instead attempting to provoke a strike. However, as American unions have increasingly begun to resort to slowdowns rather than strikes, lockouts have come "back in fashion" for many employers, and even as incident of strikes are on the decline, incidents of lockouts are on the rise in the U.S.[citation needed]
Recent notable lockout incidents have been reported in professional sports, notably involving the National Basketball Association in the 1998–99 season the National Hockey League in the 1994–95 and 2004–05 seasons.
The NLRB National Labor Relations Board has the authority to investigate and remedy unfair labor practices, which are defined in Section 8 of the Act. In broad terms, the NLRA National Labor Relations Act makes it unlawful for an employer to:
The Act similarly bars unions from:
Applying this general language to the real world requires, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, "distinctions more nice than obvious". The substantive law applied by the NLRB is described elsewhere under specific headings devoted to particular topics.
Not every unfair act amounts to an unfair labor practice; as an example, failing to pay an individual worker overtime pay for hours worked in excess of forty hours in a week might be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, but it is unlikely to amount to an unfair labor practice as well. Similarly, a violation of a collective bargaining agreement, standing alone, may not constitute an unfair labor practice unless the employer has not only violated the contract but repudiated all or part of it.
