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Bargaining Update Nokia CWA members continue to bargain with Nokia, and have agreed to a one-month extension of the current collective bargaining agreement. The company has not backed down on their sole proposal in bargaining which would eliminate its union workforce, one of the oldest bargaining units in CWA. The unit has more than 100 years of history originally as Western Electric, then AT&T Technologies, Lucent Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent, and now Nokia. Nokia wants to move the work to a third-party service provider model that will cause hundreds of U.S. workers to lose their jobs. Future work would be subcontracted and, in some cases, handled abroad. This week, UNI Global Union, a global union federation representing 20 million members in more than 150 different countries, expressed their support for the Nokia workers, calling on Nokia to bargain with the CWA in good faith. Click here to send an online letter to Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri and Nokia Bargaining Chair Steve Muscat urging Nokia not to eliminate American jobs and benefits, to bargain in good faith with the union for a fair deal that allows Nokia to invest in the U.S., to keep its long-standing installer workforce, and to maintain the quality of service and our telecommunications infrastructure for U.S. customers. ### AT&T Midwest and AT&T Legacy T In the face of AT&T's unwillingness to make serious progress toward keeping good jobs with family-supporting wages and benefits in their communities, the CWA bargaining committees for AT&T Midwest and AT&T Legacy T have gone home to their respective locations to ramp up mobilizations and are working to increase political and public pressure on AT&T to bargain fair contracts. CWA members and retirees can show their support by signing a petition to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson at www.GoodJobsATT.org and sharing it with their friends. Top photo: Members of CWA Local 4340 at the Chatfield garage in Cleveland are standing strong for a fair contract at AT&T Midwest.Bottom photo: Members of CWA Locals 7200 and 7250 at AT&T Legacy T have been holding weekly rallies together in Minneapolis to show AT&T that they're ready to fight for a fair contract. ### Envoy Air and Piedmont Airlines Workers are continuing to fight for American Airlines to pay its employees living wages at subsidiaries Envoy Air and Piedmont Airlines. This week, more than 100 workers around the country leafleted at nine different airports to build public awareness and support for the fair contract fights at Envoy and Piedmont by asking passengers to sign the petition to end poverty pay at American Airlines at www.American-Poverty.org. — Jul 12
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Organizing Update The New Yorker A month after employees at The New Yorker announced their intention to join together to be represented by the NewsGuild of New York/TNG-CWA Local 31003, The New Yorker has agreed to the Guild's request for voluntary recognition. Negotiations for a first contract will begin soon. — Jul 12
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Supreme Court Pick Brett Kavanaugh Has Long Record of Siding with Corporations against CWA Members CWA is opposing President Trump's nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and calling on members of the U.S. Senate to reject this nomination, citing his long record of routinely ruling against workers and their families and regularly siding with employers against employees seeking justice in the workplace – including CWA members. Decisions of the Supreme Court can have a dramatic impact on working people's rights, freedoms and legal safeguards, as we saw in cases this past term like Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil. Just last year, Kavanaugh issued a partial dissent in a case involving more than 300 NABET-CWA technicians at CNN who lost their jobs and the benefits of union representation in the wake of the company's phony reorganization scheme to get rid of union workers. He concluded that the company was not liable for violations of the National Labor Relations Act and should not have to pay back wages. Kavanaugh also stood with AT&T to prevent CWA members in Connecticut who interact with customers or work in public from wearing union shirts protesting their treatment by the company. He has held that a waiver of a right to picket allowed Verizon to prevent workers from displaying pro-union signs in their cars. Judge Kavanaugh's unwillingness to protect workers even extends to life-and-death situations. In a case involving the death of a Sea World trainer who was working with a killer whale, he dissented from the majority, holding that the Department of Labor lacks authority to regulate activities of participants in sports events or entertainment shows in order to protect their health and safety. Based on his record, it seems clear that if he is appointed to the Supreme Court, Judge Kavanaugh will continue to protect the interests of already powerful corporate CEOs instead of working families. — Jul 12
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It's Time to Hold Facebook Accountable As Facebook comes under increased scrutiny for its handling of personal information and its disclosure of data breaches, CWA is joining the Freedom From Facebook coalition and calling on the Federal Trade Commission to hold Facebook accountable for privacy breaches and other practices that have harmed consumers and to break up Facebook's corporate monopoly. "We should all be deeply concerned by Facebook's power over our lives and democracy," said CWA Strategic Research Associate Brian Thorn. "It's time for the FTC to hold Facebook accountable, impose strong privacy rules on the platform, and break up the monopoly. Anything else would be unfair to the American people, our privacy, and our democracy." CWA is also shining a light on Facebook's role in age discrimination towards job applicants. In December 2017, CWA filed a class action lawsuit against multiple large employers for their use of Facebook to prevent millions of older Americans from seeing job ads. — Jul 12
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CWA Activists Gear Up to Defeat "Right-to-Work" in Missouri CWA activists in District 6 representing locals from across the state of Missouri gathered in June to prepare to defeat a so-called "right-to-work" ballot initiative. Each activist at the training learned how to explain why right-to-work is harmful for working people, how to run a successful phone bank and canvass by recruiting volunteers in the workplace, and the importance of signing up members to CWA's Political Action Fund (PAF) for not only this fight but also for future fights. In the first week of the campaign, the activists collected hundreds of postcards with commitments from CWA members to vote against the initiative and engage others in the fight, signed up more than 100 new PAF members, and successfully hosted several phone banks and canvasses within their locals. CWAers, their families, and friends will be working hard every day from now until the August 7 election to defeat the initiative, called Proposition A. This training program was supported by CWA's Missouri Right-to-Work Strategic Industry Fund. CWA activists in District 6 representing locals from across the state of Missouri gathered in June to prepare to defeat a so-called "right-to-work" ballot initiative. — Jul 12