Labor Briefing

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4 SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 2017 Off the Job Training—Of the 700,000 members of the Communications Work­ ers of America, 150,000 work for AT&T— making them second only to UPS as the biggest unionized private sector em­ ployer in the U.S. But since deregulation “broke up” the virtual telephone mo­ nopoly of Ma Bell in the 1980s, a single national contract has been replaced with dozens of agreements. Many of these are small newly unionized units in the wire­ less part of the industry that is rapidly supplanting landlines.

While the company peacefully settled some of the agreements in traditional union strongholds, they decided to chal­ lenge the CWA in newer units that had never participated in a strike.

On May 19, CWA used the strike au­ thorization voted by the membership to call out more than 40,000 ATT Mobility workers for a three-day, long-weekend walkout that was also joined in some ar­ eas by thousands of landline workers and 2000 employees of Direct TV, a satellite network recently acquired by AT&T.

The strike served two objectives. It was intended as a warning to the company of what to expect if they continue to stone­ wall in negotiations. Last year CWA effec­ tively shut down Verizon, a spin-off from the former Bell system in the Northeast, and a leader in wireless business.

But it was also a test of the commitment and organizational ability of thousands of new members who had never before walked a picket line. While not everything went off like clockwork, these workers passed the stress test, and areas of con­ cern were identified so that they could be reinforced. An open-ended strike threat, like last year’s shutdown at Verizon, re­ mains credible.

At our deadline, the company appeared to be willing to resume meaningful nego­ tiations. We’ll likely will know more next month.

Prevailing Double-Dealing—On May 22, more than 100 mostly Latino unor­ ganized workers walked off their jobs at the construction site of a new highChris Garlock / Union City rect while actually deceitful. For some years, in most areas, the Carpenters union has negotiated two-tier deals that pay substantially less for residential work than commercial or government jobs. With no previous challenge, the boss had advertised for help at the residential rate on this nine-figure project.

The Latino workers now depend on a just ruling from the NLRB or the courts— hardly a sure thing. After their strike, the end Omni Hotel in Louisville. They claimed the subcontrac­ tor who had hired them was cheating them on wages—a charge hotly denied by the boss, whose defense was that he was paying them the rate offered when they were hired.

While the boss was techni­ cally correct on that score, workers had discovered that union members doing similar work were paid $40 an hour while they were receiving only about $20. They contacted an attorney, who explained that since about half of the $289 million cost of the hotel was being picked up by local and state subsidies, it qualified as a “prevailing wage” project. That means union scale has to be paid even if workers don’t belong to a union.

But the subcontractor ar­ gued he was paying a union scale—also technically cor­ late and $20 short to pass out union au­ thorization cards—which were signed by nearly all.

Closing ObamaPost Era — While unions are understandably concerned about the Trump administration’s likely attacks on public as well as private-sector workers, few talk about Obama’s ruthless gutting of the U.S. Postal Service. Postal workers cannot legally strike. Obama used com­ pulsory arbitration and executive orders to eliminate and downgrade tens of thou­ sands of USPS jobs. Now, the Letter Carri­ ers are finally getting a chance to vote on a negotiated contract.

It’s described in broad strokes by Mark Gruenberg, writing for the semi-official Press Associates Union News Service: “The 213,000 members of the National Association of Letter Carriers will vote this summer on a new 40-month contract with the U.S. Postal Service, featuring two raises and a pay upgrade for each carrier and for city carrier assistants, a narrower pay gap between CCAs and career carri­ ers, and more opportunities for CCAs to become career carriers.

“On May 12, the union’s executive board unanimously recommended members approve the pact, NALC President Fred­ ric Rolando said. If they do so, NALC will avoid binding interest arbitration. Sev­ eral postal unions were forced to use that in recent contracts. The recommended NALC pact is retroactive to May 21, 2016, and runs through Sept. 21, 2019.”

Extra-Curricular Activities—Saman­ tha Winslow began a Labor Notes article about teacher involvement in May Day (continued on page 5, in “Labor Briefing”)