December 11, 2014

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Judge Finds Cablevision and CEO Dolan Guilty of Illegal Actions

T-Mobile Workers' Message Resonates at Global Union World Meeting
Congress Set to Cave in to Even More Big Money in Politics
Organizing Update
Help Striking FairPoint Families This Holiday Season
Protests Beset TPP Negotiations
CWA Commends Confirmation of Lauren McFerran to NLRB
Supreme Court Denies Amazon Warehouse Workers Pay for Security
Screening
Standing Strong at Verizon, Then and Now

Judge Finds Cablevision and CEO Dolan Guilty

of Illegal Actions
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A Federal Administrative Law Judge ruled late last week that Cablevision and
its CEO James Dolan broke multiple labor laws in an attempt to stop workers
in Brooklyn and the Bronx from unionizing.
CWA will now begin the process to get New York City to bring the corporation
into compliance with its cable franchise and, if necessary, declare it in default
of the franchise for violations of the labor rights provisions of the agreement.
The franchise requires the company to comply with Federal labor law.
The ruling stemmed from charges that two separate National Labor Relations
Board regional offices authorized against the company in April 2013: in
Brooklyn, for illegally firing 22 workers, bargaining in bad faith, and spying on
workers, and in the Bronx, for illegally intimidating, harassing and essentially
bribing workers during a union representation election.

"Finally, the NLRB has spoken in an unprecedented 300 page decision that
outlines the deliberate law breaking of James Dolan. In any other jurisdiction
he would face arrest," CWA President Larry Cohen said. "Yet, based on his
past behavior, Mr. Dolan likely believes his personal fortune and family
control of Cablevision will allow him and Cablevision to avoid any real
penalties. Since the trial, Jim Dolan and Cablevision have escalated their
attacks on their employees and their union. The NLRB needs to take
immediate action. The City and State of New York need to treat Cablevision
and all Dolan family controlled entities like the major law breaker that is
documented extensively in this decision."
The long-awaited decision is a major boost to the Brooklyn Cablevision
workers' campaign for a fair and just contract. The decision comes after a trial
concluded in December of 2013. Just last month, the NLRB issued a third
sweeping federal complaint against Cablevision, including citing Dolan
specifically, for new violations of federal labor laws at its Brooklyn unit.
Cablevision was charged with illegally firing Jerome Thompson, a pro-union
worker, conducting an illegal sham poll of workers following CEO James
Dolan's in-person visit designed to intimidate employees with a highly
prejudicial speech, and illegally implementing changes in working conditions
without bargaining with CWA. A trial on these charges is expected to begin
shortly and CWA is confident that Cablevision will be found guilty of these
charges as well.

T-Mobile Workers' Message Resonates at

Global Union World Meeting
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The struggle by T-Mobile US workers for a voice in the workplace found

strong support among delegates to the UNI World Congress in Cape Town,
South Africa, this week, CWA President Larry Cohen said.

CWA President Larry Cohen and ver.di leader Lothar Schrder talk T-Mobile.
Below: ver.di members in Germany show support for their U.S. colleagues at T-Mobile.

Cohen presented a video demonstrating the partnership between T-Mobile

US activists and members of ver.di, the union that represents workers at
Deutsche Telekom (DT), the German corporation and parent company of
TMUS. Cohen was joined in the presentation by Lothar Schrder, deputy
chairman of the supervisory board of DT and a ver.di leader.
See the video here.
"The video we've just seen documents a new standard of international
solidarity," Cohen said. "ver.di has been amazing. The solidarity has been
spectacular and goes deeper than the bond between Lothar and I. ver.di and
CWA created TU, which is a true partnership. Our TU members belong both
to ver.di and CWA."
More than 2,000 labor leaders from around the world came to the UNI Global
Congress in Cape Town on the 20th anniversary of South Africa's emergence
from the apartheid regime that saw that nation's leaders like Nelson Mandela

jailed and the black population disenfranchised. UNI Global Union is a global
federation that represents more than 20 million workers from over 900 service
sector unions worldwide.
T-Mobile call-center supervisors harass workers in the United States for
daring to organize their workplaces, including summary firings and repeated
captive audience interrogations. The German government is the largest
shareholder in DT, which holds a 67% stake in T-Mobile. DT's workforce in
Germany and the rest of Europe have bargaining rights.
Schrder pointed to solidarity as one of the main reasons for joining with TMobile US workers. But he said an equally important reason is that if the
Deutsche Telekom corporation is a well-oiled machine, with workers as
indispensable components in how it functions, then the virulent anti-labor
practices of its U.S. subsidiary T-Mobile are a defect in that machine.
"T-Mobile's labor relations disrupt that model. ver.di does not want Deutsche
Telekom or other German companies to import the American model of
disposable workers back to Germany," Schrder said.

Congress Set to Cave in to Even More Big

Money in Politics
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CWA issued this statement on the CROmnibus spending bill being

considered by the House and Senate:
As we mark the 66th anniversary of International Human Rights Day,
Congress is taking up an omnibus spending bill that includes a big
cave-in to big money in politics. International Human Rights Day was
launched by Eleanor Roosevelt in the UN in 1948, but now we are
witnessing U.S. politics bought and sold by billionaires.
The CROmnibus spending bill is a travesty that, if adopted, will weaken
our democracy. It would increase by tenfold the limits on an individual's
contribution to a national political party every year to $324,000 and
expand the corrupting role of big money in our election process. That
could give even greater control over our democracy to the wealthiest of
the 1 percent.

The Citizens United and McCutcheon Supreme Court decisions made

this wave of obscene spending possible. It's not surprising that voters
are cynical, and that turnout in November was at record lows. How can
citizens believe that their votes count when they see corporations and
wealthy individuals spending millions and getting their way?
Because of this "pay to play" politics, it also looks as though Wall Street
will succeed in rolling back financial regulations just six years after Wall
Street excesses resulted in an economy that came crashing down on
working families. The bill would allow the big banks to again gamble
with taxpayer dollars, knowing they will be bailed out by working
families when their deals fall apart.
As we celebrate International Human Rights Day, we need to recommit
to mobilizing millions for a 21st century democracy. Tomorrow, the
Democracy Initiative convenes in Washington. Fifty-five organizations,
including environmental, community, civil rights, labor, and democracy,
are all ready to stand up and fight back. We hope that members of
Congress stand with us.

Organizing Update
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Verizon Wireless Retail Store Workers Vote for CWA in Massachusetts

Retail workers at a Verizon Wireless store in Everett, Mass., voted for
bargaining rights and CWA representation.
The vote is a huge victory for these workers, who stayed strong despite an
aggressive and intimidating management campaign to dissuade them. There
are 16 workers at the Everett store. Fairness in promotions and discipline and
greater job security were key issues in the campaign.
It follows the vote last May by nearly 70 Verizon Wireless store workers at six
Brooklyn stores who also made a successful stand for bargaining rights to
address their issues on the job.
"There's a real movement of Verizon Wireless workers that we knew we
wanted to be a part of, to stand up with our colleagues for fairness and our
rights on the job," said Mike Tisei, a retail worker at the Everett store. "Today,

we joined that movement."

A growing wave of retail workers is looking for bargaining rights to make real
changes on the job. Hundreds of Verizon Wireless workers are building the
movement online too, through Facebook and other social media.
"We welcome the Everett retail store workers to our union family. All of us are
stronger when we stand together," said Chris Shelton, CWA District 1 vice
president.
Just as in Brooklyn, and for more than a decade nationwide, Verizon Wireless
management put extreme pressure on the Everett workers in an effort to
block the vote for CWA representation. There were countless one-on-one
captive audience meetings, where managers forced workers to listen to onesided attacks on union representation.
VZW has done everything possible to prevent Wireless workers from joining
the 40,000 Verizon Communications workers, 80 Verizon Wireless
technicians and nearly 70 Verizon Wireless workers who have CWA
representation. Today's vote shows that Verizon Wireless's wall of resistance
to workers' bargaining rights is crumbling.
###
NABET-CWA Wins NLRB Election for Workers in Congress
Technicians and other workers at the U.S. House of Representatives
Recording Studio have voted to join NABET-CWA. Fighting against a vicious
anti-union campaign by management in the election that the National Labor
Relations Board ran last week, the National Association of Broadcast
Employees and Technicians-Communications Workers of America won 11 of
the 19 votes that workers cast.
NABET-CWA will represent the 24 workers in the unit in contract negotiations
with their employer, Maslow Media Group. Workers in the unit do the same
type of work as 45 NABET-CWA members who work in the House Recording
Studio and are employees of the U.S. Government.
Tyrone Riggs, who lost his job at CNN 11 years ago, led the campaign with
NABET-CWA staff Representative Carrie Biggs-Adams, and Local 52031
Local President Rich McDermott.

Help Striking FairPoint Families This Holiday

Season
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Soon, 1,800 CWA and IBEW members will be entering the ninth week of their
strike at FairPoint Communications locations in Maine, New Hampshire and
Vermont. Let's make sure these valiant union members, who had the courage
to strike, can provide for their families this holiday season.
FairPoint, New England's largest telecommunications company, unilaterally
imposed a contract that ended restrictions on subcontracting and
outsourcing, froze pensions, increased health care costs for active workers
and cut retiree health care, added a two-tier wage plan with big pay cuts for
new hires and other cuts that forced workers to walk out.
While CWA's Members' Relief Fund covers 215 striking members, the 1,500
striking IBEW members have no strike fund.
Make a donation to the IBEW-CWA Solidarity Fund by clicking here. Your
support will help them continue to stand up to corporate greed.
A strike can be especially hard on the children of the striking parents, who
have already begun to tell their kids that Christmas is going to be much
smaller this year. So CWA Local 1400 has compiled a wish list of gifts for the
children of its members in three states. There are hundreds of items to
choose from, from diapers to gift cards to toys. Click here to see the list and
help make the holiday season brighter for the children of these striking
workers.
Lastly, if you live near one of the many strike lines throughout New England,
please come show your support. Hold a sign, bring some coffee or order a
few pizzas for workers standing out in the cold! IBEW and CWA are also
asking for people to drop off gift cards to local grocery stores and gas
stations.
We can't allow our brothers and sisters to be starved or frozen back to work.
This holiday season, please stand with workers fighting for a fair contract.
To learn more and stay up to date on the strike, visit Fairness at FairPoint on
Facebook.

Protests Beset TPP Negotiations

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CWAers joined hundreds of activists from labor, environmental, consumer,

human rights, public health, Internet freedom, faith and family farm groups in
a week of protests outside the office of the United States Trade
Representative against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal under
negotiation inside.

Activists in Washington, DC, protest outside TPP negotiations.

CWA Senior Director George Kohl said the protesters are not against trade
but they are against the secrecy that has cloaked the TPP negotiations from
the beginning and against some of the terms that have been leaked so far.
They deserve to know what deal the negotiators are trying to reach.
"We are fighting against old trade policy that literally guarantees corporate
profits at the expense of working families in all nations," Kohl said. "In the
weeks ahead, we will mobilize like never before against Fast Track

authorizing legislation and the TPP, and for 21st century trade that gives
workers' rights, environmental issues and other concerns the same standing
as corporate profits."
As negotiators from the 12 Pacific Rim nations hoping to join the partnership
met inside the USTR office, protesters with bullhorns and other noisemakers
unfurled banners and placards to denounce the deal they are busy crafting.
"TPP=Polluters' Bill of Rights," proclaimed one sign. A person carried a sign
saying "Protect Families and the Environment: No Fast Track, No Toxic
Trade." Another group had a gigantic banner that said: "Secret TPP
Negotiations Here!" while another banner, equally as big, exhorted onlookers
to "Stop TPP. Transparency: Release the Text."
Among those participating were Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, The
Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, The National Family Farm Coalition, the
Citizens Trade Campaign, Food and Water Watch and The International
Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Americans have repeatedly said they will not tolerate trade deals that
undercut wages and export jobs overseas. They have said they do not
support "Fast Track" legislation that asks Congress to give up the right to
scrutinize an eventual deal. Americans are sick of NAFTA-style deals. CWA
members in the communications and manufacturing sectors among others
know well what happened with past bad trade deals. Good-paying, familysupporting jobs vanish overseas, where pay is minimal, benefits non-existent
and working conditions brutal.
Bad past trade deals were driving factors in population migration like the one
earlier this year when children fled Central American cities in Guatemala,
Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, crossing the Mexico-U.S. border
unaccompanied by a parent, to escape poverty and gang violence. Other
undocumented immigrants are often forced to live outside basic labor law
protections without a way to regularize their immigration status.

CWA Commends Confirmation of Lauren

McFerran to NLRB
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The Senate voted 54-40 Monday night to confirm Lauren McFerran as a

member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Her seat on the five-member board ensures current NLRB policy will carry on
for the next two years and that the board will continue to meet its
responsibilities under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). McFerran, as
a labor counsel to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has extensive knowledge of labor
and employment law.
CWA President Larry Cohen said, "It is unfortunate that the nomination of
another highly qualified candidate, former Member Sharon Block, did not
proceed despite a positive vote of the HELP committee before the Senate
election recess. Soon-to-be Majority Leader McConnell, in his initial meeting
with the president, demanded Block's withdrawal even though he did not
have the votes to block her confirmation and at least one Republican on the
committee had voted for her. The president agreed; we should all view that
as a wake-up call for attacks on workers' rights in the next Congress.
"The anti-worker ideological bent exhibited by the new Senate majority is
without precedent since the passage of the NLRA 80 years ago. Working
people now are on notice that Senator McConnell will be aiming at workers'
rights as a core part of his leadership, and with the full support and
encouragement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is up to the rest of us,
not just labor, to support workers' rights as we build a movement for
economic justice and democracy."

Supreme Court Denies Amazon Warehouse

Workers Pay for Security Screening
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In a 9-0 vote, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday morning that employers don't
have to pay their employees for the time they spend waiting in line for
security checkpoints at the end of their shifts.
The central question was simply, "Is this work?" Every day, Amazon
warehouse workers line up for an airport-style security check for as long as
25 minutes without pay, so that they can be searched for stolen goods
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the mandatory screening process is not
a "principal activity" of jobs in the warehouse under the Fair Labor Standards

Act and therefore is not subject to compensation. In doing so, the Supreme
Court reverses a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that found
screenings were actually vital to workers' jobs both for themselves and their
bosses and should be compensated.
CWA has been a longtime supporter of Amazon warehouse workers, both in
the U.S. and Germany. In February, CWAers and other activists rallied
outside Amazon's worldwide headquarters in Seattle to show their solidarity
with German Amazon workers who have been carrying out rolling strikes
since May 2013 to push Amazon to negotiate with the German union ver.di.
This week more than 500 German workers at two Amazon warehouses went
on strike again to protest their pay and working conditions. Read more here.

Standing Strong at Verizon, Then and Now

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CWAers from Local 1101, 1102, 1103, 1104, 1105, 1106, 1108, 1109 and 1120 filled the streets
outside Verizon headquarters in New York City, marking the 25th anniversary of the return to work
following a 17-week strike in 1989 at NYNEX, the corporation that became Verizon. In 2015, workers at
Verizon East are bargaining for a new contract.

CWA
501 Third Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
www.cwa-union.org

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