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News
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Newletter from Vice President Seth Rosen, CWA District 4
September 22, 2011
DISTRICT 4 COMMUNICATOR: NEWS AND NOTES FOR LOCAL OFFICERS
FROM: SETH ROSEN, VICE PRESIDENT - CWA DISTRICT 4
**ADT Organizing Victories Across District 4! It was around a year ago that ADT purchased Brinks Security, setting up a parallel non-union operation to the CWA-represented home and business security company.
Following a strategy meeting of all locals at last year’s District meeting, CWA Rep Bryon Capper began to work on using our collective bargaining relationship with ADT to help create a fair opportunity to organize. At the same time, District Organizing Coordinator Curt Hess began to work with our Locals that represent ADT employees to prepare to organize. Over a number of months, Bryon was able to negotiate expedited election agreements, as well as get a verbal commitment of neutrality. This has led to a wave of successful organizing of the former Brinks employees by Curt and the ADT Local leaders. In Cleveland, Local 4484 organized the Brinks group in a unanimous election. In Detroit, Local 4070 organized their group in a 22 to 2 vote. In Cincinnati, Local 4400 also won a unanimous election victory.
Campaigns are underway in Indianapolis and Dayton, as well. Once we have succeeded in organizing all those in parallel Brinks groups where we have an ADT unit, we will look at some other totally unorganized groups throughout the region. Even in these tough times, it is possible to organize and win through strategic bargaining and systematic organizing work. If you’d like to investigate organizing ADT in your city, contact Curt Hess at the District Office: (440) 333-6363; chess@cwa-union.org
**Ohio Locals Prepare for Six Week Push to Repeal SB 5/Vote No on 2:
Across Ohio, locals are ramping up their campaigns to win a "No" vote on State Issue 2, which would repeal the union-busting SB 5 law. Locals activists are for traditional electoral activities: walks, phone banks, mail to members, and worksite leaflets -- but in this important campaign, our Locals are doing even more. Many of our Locals signed up for a “Family and Friends” program to reach out to people they know through social media. A growing number of Locals have made a contribution to “We Are Ohio,” the campaign to win a "No on Issue 2"
vote. The Koch Brothers, and other major corporate funders, will be plowing tens of millions of dollars into the “yes” campaign to further their anti-collective bargaining agenda. If we have the resources to fight back, we will win-every little bit helps. If you’d like to make a donation to the campaign, please contact me directly at
the District 4 office: (440) 333-6363. We are also participating,
through the Stand Up for Ohio labor community coalition, in broad jobs campaigns that try to expand the fight beyond just SB 5 to the overall fight for jobs. Events are happening throughout October in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown. On October 6th, CWA President Larry Cohen will be in Columbus to walk with CWA activists.
If you’d like to get more involved in walks, phones, or these jobs campaign events, contact my Assistant, Linda Hinton, or CWA Rep Bill Bain, also at the District Office. We can win this fight, but we have to do the work.
**D4 AT&T Mobility Locals Leading the Fight to Support Verizon
Bargaining: While many of our Locals have been involved in support for East Coast Verizon bargaining by leafleting and demonstrating at Verizon wireless stores, some of the most active have been our Locals that represent workers at AT&T Mobility. Across District 4, these Locals have led the way in adopting Verizon stores to protest and leaflet nearly every day. All in all, D4 Locals and allies have adopted 26 Verizon wireless stores in all five of our states. Meanwhile, bargaining at Verizon continues to report little progress as management still is demanding major regression in health care, pensions, and job security. We are glad to help provide support for this important fight.
**AT&T Bargaining Ahead, Preparations Already Underway: The next big telecom fight after Verizon will be our negotiations with AT&T for a new contract to replace the one that will expire on April 7, 2012. Our Midwest Bargaining Committee, along with Chair Jerry Schaeff and CWA Rep Ron Honse (who will staff the benefits negotiations), began meeting in June to prepare and attended a meeting at the Convention in July, together with the committees from the other three contracts that expire in April 2012. This week our District Mobilization Committee, District Coordinator Susan Baxter-Fleming, and their counterparts from around the country went through the pilot of a training this week, that will be available to Locals beginning in October. October will also see the first meeting of the “Committee of Eight,” the four VPs and four elected members of bargaining committees (Local 4603 President George Walls is our rep). The bargaining chairs (Jerry and his counterparts) will also attend. We are prepared better and earlier than ever before.
We believe that it is essential to ramp up our mobilization efforts WAY before April 7th. In January, Staff and Mobilization Committee members will begin meeting with each Local’s board to make sure that we have Local structures and plans in place to carry out whatever strategy and tactics that we choose. As we saw at Verizon, our tactical arsenal is wide open, and we need to be ready for anything and everything. We will have an in-depth discussion of this at the D4 AT&T Bargaining Unit Meeting on October 13th.
**What’s Ahead:
--October 12-13, 2011: District 4 Education Conference, Cleveland, Ohio --October 23-28, 2011: Leadership School, Angola, Indiana
--November 8, 2011: Election Day, Ohio Citizens' Veto of Collective
Bargaining Bill
--January 22-27, 2012: New Officers Training, Angola, Indiana --Jan 31 - Feb 2, 2012: CWA Legislative-Political Conference and
National Presidents' Meeting, Washington, DC
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