News

  • CWA Members Ratify New Contract with AT&T Mobility to Keep Jobs in Puerto Rico
    Communications Workers of America members in Puerto Rico who work at AT&T Mobility ratified a four-year agreement covering 900 workers yesterday. The new agreement provides wage increases, maintains existing pension plan and health care benefits, restricts subcontracting, and contains a guarantee that customer calls will continue to be handled on the island. “When working people join together in unions they have the power to protect their jobs and strengthen their communities,” said CWA District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt. “This contract ensures that AT&T will keep family-supporting jobs with fair compensation and good benefits in Puerto Rico.” The contract also adds protections against discrimination based on marital status, sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression. Enshrining these protections in a union contract provides an important supplement to anti-discrimination laws by outlining a clear process for redressing discrimination through the union grievance and arbitration process. During negotiations, CWA members’ efforts to raise awareness of the need for AT&T to commit to keeping jobs in Puerto Rico drew broad public support. Members of Congress, led by Rep. Darren Soto, weighed in with a letter expressing concern that AT&T continue to provide good jobs as Puerto Rico recovers from the devastation of Hurricane Maria. ### — Jul 11
  • Bargaining and Mobilization Update
    AT&T Midwest, AT&T Legacy T, and AT&T Mobility Puerto Rico The CWA bargaining teams have reached tentative agreements with AT&T's Midwest and AT&T Legacy T units, including AT&T Legacy T in Puerto Rico, and AT&T Mobility in Puerto Rico. The agreements come after a long campaign to raise public awareness of CWA members' concerns, particularly around job security. Most recently, CWA issued a series of reports highlighting service quality issues in the Midwest and, last week, members of Congress, led by Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.), wrote a letter expressing concern that AT&T continue to provide good jobs in Puerto Rico as the island continues to recover from Hurricane Maria. The new Midwest agreement provides for additional call center jobs and contains a commitment to discuss contracted out work and the Puerto Rico agreement contains a guarantee that customer calls will continue to be handled on the island. Details of the proposed contracts are being provided to the locals' leadership, and contract explanation meetings are being scheduled prior to the ratification vote. — Jul 3
  • Join a CWA Town Hall Call Next Week on How to End Offshoring
    Big corporations are sending more and more of our jobs overseas to boost their profits at the expense of working people, but we're fighting back! CWAers all across the country are speaking up and taking action to stop corporations from offshoring more jobs. Last week, CWA members held a Day of Action, placing more than 1,500 calls to their members of Congress asking them to support legislation to help stop offshoring. Join CWA activists, President Chris Shelton, and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) for a CWA town hall call on July 9th at 7:30 pm ET/4:30 pm PT to talk about our Summer of #NoMoreOffshoring campaign and what CWA is doing to fight back against the offshoring of U.S. jobs.  Sign up for the call by visiting CWA-Union.org/NoMoreOffshoringCall. Or just text CWA CALL to 69866. — Jul 3
  • More than 30 Years Ago, Women Sued the AP for Gender Discrimination — And Won
    More than 30 years ago, seven women journalists, with the help of what is now the News Media Guild/NewsGuild-CWA Local 31222, filed a lawsuit against the Associated Press, winning a $2 million settlement that provided for back pay, training, promotion goals, and bonuses for AP's female and black journalists. When the women sued, the average annual salary for male reporters was about $20,000 compared to about $16,000 for women. The NewsGuild-CWA interviewed the women as part of its ongoing equal pay project, which includes analyses of pay at publications including The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Washington Post. Martha Waggoner, the international chairperson of The NewsGuild-CWA and a 35-year employee of the Associated Press, wrote about the lawsuit for Poynter.  "I'd love to say that everything's fine now," Virginia Sherlock, one of the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit said. "But it's not. Women and minorities are still not at the same pay level. I can say with some measure of satisfaction that huge steps have been taken...But c'mon, what is it, 40 years? We can do better." — Jul 3
  • CWA Next Generation Members in District 3 Building Organizing Skills
    Last week, 24 CWA members from eight states across District 3 spent two days learning and practicing political action and organizing skills. CWA Local 3808 in Nashville, Tenn., hosted a CWA Next Generation Activist Training, which was jointly sponsored by CWA Next Gen and D3. The training focused on helping participants build practical organizing skills and giving them opportunities to roleplay one-on-one conversations with fellow members. When asked why the Next Gen program is so important to our union, participant Eli Stanfield said, "The union is intergenerational, from workers in their first jobs to elders with decades of organizing experience. Next Gen provides an opportunity to pass on that wisdom to the next generation of union leaders." When asked why he is active in the union, participant Dan Warren-Castillo said, "I'm active because I feel like my future is tied up with the future of the labor movement. My dignity and well-being as a worker depends on the victories of the working class as a whole." CWA Local 3808 in Nashville, Tenn., hosted a CWA Next Generation Activist Training to help participants build practical organizing skills and give them opportunities to roleplay one-on-one conversations with fellow members. — Jul 3