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NATIONAL POLITICAL/LEGISLATIVE PAST VICTORIES AND FUTURE FIGHTS
ESTIMATED TIME1 hour, 10 minutes
MATERIALS CHECKLIST � Laptop
� Projector and screen
� Presentation click/laser pointer (AA batteries included)
� PowerPoint presentation: CWA Past Victories: National Political and Legislative Fights
� High speed WiFi connection
� Speakers
� Flip chart
� Timekeeping cards
TO BE PREPPED
POWERPOINT PRESENTATION
CWA PAST VICTORIES: NATIONAL POLITICAL AND LEGISLATIVE FIGHTS
Î The presentation file is very large and needs to be uploaded at least 1 hour prior to presenting. Ensure that the WiFi connection is strong so that the videos within the presentation play with ease. Test the volume of the speakers to make sure that everyone in the room can hear clearly.
FLIP CHARTS
NATIONAL CURRENT/FUTURE FIGHTS
Î Flip-chart the most important current/future fights of the national union. If needed, contact the national training staff at [email protected] in order to gauge 4-5 key current/future fights of the union.
04 MOD
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TIMEKEEPING
Enlist a co-facilitator to use the timekeeping cards to keep time for the full module as outlined in the Instructor’s Manual. Staying on time is essential for the success of the full training!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION All facilitator’s talking points can be found in the notes of the PowerPoint presentations.
PARTICIPANT’S GUIDE PAGE REFERENCES
CWA Political Action Section: Pg. 159
National Political/Legislative Past Victories and Future Fights: Pg. 160
OBJECTIVES Î Share and celebrate the national wins of CWA.
Î Demonstrate what types of gains are possible for working people to achieve when we fight back against injustice.
Î Discuss the ebb and flow of power and demonstrate the 1%’s attack on our gains.
Î Review CWA’s future national fights.
MODULE OUTLINETotal 1 hour, 10 minutes
Past Victories PowerPoint Presentation 1 hour
Future Fights 10 minutes
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DIRECTIONS
POWERPOINT PRESENTATION 1 HOUR
STEP 1. INTRODUCE THE ACTIVITY
2 minutes
SAY: (Slide 1 notes from the presentation file) “Let’s review some past National CWA Political and legislative victories. It is important for us to have a clear connection to our past victories for the purposes of boosting morale, for affirmation of what is possible, and for clarity of what we must fight to maintain. While organizing and making connections, your greatest strength will come from your understanding of what CWA members, our allies, and working people have accomplished collectively. Let’s recap some of our national wins!”
STEP 2. PRESENT POWERPOINT: CWA PAST VICTORIES: NATIONAL POLITICAL AND LEGISLATIVE FIGHTS
58 minutes
See PowerPoint notes for all presenting points.
FUTURE FIGHTS 10 MINUTES
STEP 1. PRESENT NATIONAL VICTORIES
10 minutes
FLIP CHART: Use the National Current/Future Fights flip chart
DO: Discuss the future national priorities of the union.
® Examples: National Right-to-Work, trade, elections (in general)
DO: Have participants chime in on national fights that they may have worked on (maximum 2 responses).
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NATIONAL POLITICAL & LEGISLATIVE FIGHTS POWERPOINT PRESENTATION
SLIDE 01
Presenter Notes
L et’s review some past National CWA Political and legislative victories.
It is important for us to have a clear connection to our past victories for the purposes of boosting morale, for affirma-tions of what is possible, and for clarity of what we must fight to maintain. While organizing and making connections, your greatest strength will come from your understanding of what CWA members, our allies, and working people have accomplished collectively.
Let’s recap some of our national wins!DAY TW
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SLIDE 02
Presenter Notes
Remember, yesterday we spoke about OSHA as a win for working people. This is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which was created in 1970 as a direct victory of working people’s organizing in the 1960s! OSHA was a major victory, because it requires employers to keep the workplace free from any known hazards.
Employers regulated by OSHA must follow specific guide-lines, such as installing protection against falls and provid-ing protective gear for workers who handle dangerous sub-stances.
OSHA is essential to our everyday lives as working people, and we must actively maintain and expand the protective power of this legislation.
SLIDE 03
Presenter Notes
Here is another victory briefly highlighted yesterday: the Family Medical Leave Act.
FMLA is a US law requiring employers to provide working people with job protection and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. Before this law, in 1993, situ-ations such as pregnancy, adoption, foster care placement of a child, personal or family illness, or family military leave could have resulted in being fired from work due to lack of attendance. FMLA is a point of frustration for many corpo-rations, because it costs them money. However, for working people, this legislation has kept families, ill workers, and caretakers out of poverty. It has safeguarded workers against the fear of losing their jobs in the event of personal or family illness.
ASK: “By a show of hands, how many people in this room have used FMLA at some point?”
® FMLA is an example of what organizing power can do when enough pressure is put on decision makers to legalize rights for working people.
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SLIDE 04
Presenter Notes
Another major victory is our early 2017 defeat of the Trans-Pacific Partnership! With a massive coalition of pro-gressive groups, we pressured and organized elected offi-cials with hard opposition to this dirty global trade deal. In the end, because of our efforts, the United States backed out of the deal.
ASK: “By a show of hands, how many people here have heard of TPP?”
ASK: “By a show of hands, how many of you all worked on the campaign?”
DO: Take one short story of what it was like to work on the campaign.
Many members engaged in opposing TPP–and engaged hard–resulting in CWA leading the fight and contributing more resources than any other single organization!
Since TPP is called “NAFTA on steroids”, let’s look at some of the crises created by NAFTA, so that we can be clear about the potential effects of TPP as a bad trade deal and why it was so essential that we organized and beat it!
SLIDE 05
Presenter Notes
This image displays the effects of NAFTA on U.S. jobs in 2010. The darker the coloring, the worse the job displace-ment is. The ideal color would be white, symbolizing no job displacement. However, here we see that every single state has experienced significant losses in jobs due to the trade deficit created by greedy corporate power.
Let’s quickly look at the background of NAFTA:
Î There were three countries involved in the agreement–the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
Î The deal has been a disaster for both U.S. and Mexican workers, but a major win for corporations!
In Mexico
Î 2.13 million Mexican jobs were lost and thousands of farmers were forced off their land, while few new jobs were created.
Î In Mexico, the average manufacturing worker earns only 29% of what a family of four needs to cover basic necessities.
Î One of the reasons why we saw the wave of immigration from Mexico around 2010 is because of the displacement of Mexican farmers due to NAFTA legislation.
Î Let’s look closer at an example of the connection between NAFTA and US forced-migration (immigration) conditions.
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Î Under NAFTA, the U.S. corn industry flooded the Mexican market with cheap U.S. corn. Mexican farmers could not compete and were put out of the market.
Î So, what happened next? Many Mexican farmers in search of work immigrated to the U.S., becoming a source of cheap labor for agricultural companies.
Î Let’s look at NAFTA’s effects on the United States.
Î By 2010, the United States lost 700,000 jobs due to the trade deficit with Mexico. This is what you see depicted on the slide.
As devastating as NAFTA is for working people and the economy, the TPP would have been even worse!
SLIDE 06
Presenter Notes
Remember, NAFTA was a trade deal between the United States and two other countries.
The TPP, on the other hand, was a massive trade agreement between the United States and ten other countries: Austra-lia, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and Brunei.
Additionally, other countries would possibly have been able to join the agreement after it passed. Who knows how large this thing could have become and how many countries could have been affected!
SLIDE 07
Presenter Notes
The TPP was a backroom deal being negotiated in secret!
Members of Congress, journalists, and working people like us, were excluded from seeing draft texts of the legislation. Secret negotiations went on for about three years. Not a word of draft text was released, and not a single U.S. pro-posal was made public. However, we do know that during this same time period, over 600 corporate advisers had access to key texts and proposals.
If you all question the state of our so-called democracy, think about the idea that draft texts and proposals of the TPP document were not scheduled to be released until four years after the talks were concluded, or until after a deal was reached. After a deal is reached, it’s too late to involve working people that will be affected, don’t you think?
As of November of 2015, almost all of our knowledge of TPP was because of leaked documents, many of which were on WikiLeaks. It is important to point out that the negotiations for this agreement started in 2008, though. So after seven years of backroom dealing, power holders never readily offered information to the country.
Corporations and big-moneyed interests wanted the presi-dent to use “fast track” authority, which is an authority that would have taken away Congress’s ability to negotiate the international trade agreement. This meant if the fast-track-ing of TPP was approved, it would have become law without Congress or most Americans even knowing what was in it!
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SLIDE 08
Presenter Notes
This is a screenshot taken of the list of just some of the 600 official advisors to the US trade representatives handling TPP information.
Many other corporations are represented, including, but not limited to, Verizon, Walmart, Citigroup, Prudential, Merck, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, and trade associa-tions such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America).
Once we understand who is actively involved in shaping our trade rules, it can become more clear why trade rules are so frequently set up to benefit corporate interests over the interests of workers, communities, and the environment. Trade rules are currently directed by the elite corporate class, so of course they sway the outcomes towards their interest. Let’s look at what the elite class wants to get done.
SLIDE 09
Presenter Notes
The TPP included 29 chapters. Most of these chapters did not actually deal with trade. Instead, chapters covered issues related to agriculture, the environment, labor, finan-cial regulation, governmental changes, investment, patent law, intellectual property rights, and much more.
Despite the huge impact that all these chapters would have on our economy, workers, and the environment, the negoti-ations were still taking place in virtually complete secrecy.
SLIDE 10
Presenter Notes
The passing of TPP would have absolutely exacerbated our economic crisis!
Remember the devastating effects of NAFTA, which result-ed in the loss of 700,000 jobs?
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By 2013, serious negotiations of the TPP were taking place, and we had already lost over 500,000 call center jobs. In addition, the rising trade deficit with China led to the loss of another 2.7 million jobs.
The TPP would have made all of this worse, creating a loss of even more jobs, poorer living conditions, and an even deeper economic crisis.
It is so important that we dissect what corporations are capable of and how their decisions affect us. Corporations will continue making neoliberalist decisions which focus on profits over people. We should regard the TPP fight as a template of corporate interests and a road map of how they scheme to get their needs met.
Also, we must understand TPP as a template of how we can win big!
SLIDE 11
Presenter Notes
We defeated this economy-destroying machine!
A massive coalition of progressive organizations–labor, faith-based, environmental, civil rights, etc.–united to oppose the TPP.
Of all these groups, CWA generated more calls and letters than any other single organization.
CWA members collected over 14,000 handwritten letters, generated over 22,000 phone calls, and hosted nearly 100 community events and town halls.
Our support and wins did not stop there! We joined allies in on-the-ground actions. We protested at the district offices of pro-fast track voters such as Senator Marco Rubio and Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart and Debbie Wasserman Schultz!
SLIDE 12
Presenter Notes
The broad fight for TPP created clarity about CWA’s willingness to stand for justice given any circumstances!
In 2016, we organized the Labor Movement in Florida to not support the then head of the Democratic National Commit-tee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in her run for re-election. Wasserman Schultz was in favor of fast-track for the TPP, which means she was not in favor of working people in the U.S. and abroad.
This was a masterful win for CWA because we organized and asserted power based on real issues and not parties. The fact that CWA endorsed Tim Canova, and organized the AFL-CIO to NOT endorse the head of the Democratic Party, was unheard of, especially since other unions and many CWA locals were all for Wasserman Schultz, initially!
Once CWA organizers were made aware of Wasserman Schultz’s TPP support, they started to power-map and brainstorm what could be done. They were encouraged to hold Wasserman Schultz accountable and to ensure that the AFL-CIO-endorsed candidate was working for the people.
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Before the Florida AFL-CIO candidate endorsement conven-tion, CWA power-mapped how endorsement decisions are made, learned who gets to attend, got in touch with poten-tial attendees, and taught them about Wasserman Schultz’s blatant alignment with corporate interests. When it came time to vote at the convention, Wasserman Schultz, indeed, lost the vote. Unions who came to the conference ready to blindly support the Democratic candidate were surprised to see that there was a room full of people who were against the Democrats’ policies.
All in all, Tim Canova did not win the election, even with the labor movement’s support; however, the real fight, and the real organizing, was won.
The head of the Democratic Party crossed working people, so we had to act! We made it clear to the Democratic Party and all elected officials that if you will not stand with us, we will not stand with you, regardless of your political party or your position.
This win is a great example of how we should strategize and move in the political sphere to make sure our interests stay front and center!
There are many other CWA past victories to highlight! Let’s discuss the National Labor Relations Board as a vehicle for other CWA victories!
SLIDE 13
Presenter Notes
The National Labor Relations Board, or the NLRB, is a product of the struggle of workers in 18th and 19th century America to improve their working conditions. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the labor move-
ment had grown to three million members. These workers started organizing at a time when labor unions were illegal.
It was not until 1935, with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (also known as the Wagner Act and named after New York Senator Robert Wagner), that the NLRB was created. The NLRB serves as the primary law enforcer of the NLRA, governing relations between employ-ers and employees in the private sector.
The Board’s purpose is “to protect employee rights to orga-nize and to determine whether to have unions as their bar-gaining representative.”
The NLRB is also responsible for preventing and correcting unfair labor practices. For example, union busting commit-ted by employers is an unfair labor practice and can be pun-ished by the Board.
http://www.nlrb.gov/75th/prewagner.html
SLIDE 14
Presenter Notes
The NLRB conducts elections, investigates charges, facili-tates settlements, decides cases, and enforces orders. Let’s briefly look at each responsibility.
Conducting Elections: The National Labor Relations Act provides the legal framework for private-sector employees to organize bargaining units in their workplace or to dis-solve their labor unions through a decertification election. The NLRB monitors and regulates union elections, both big and small.
Investigating Charges: Employees, union representatives, and employers who believe their rights under the Nation-
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al Labor Relations Act have been violated may file charges at their nearest NLRB regional office alleging unfair labor practices. For example, the NLRB can investigate charges of unfair labor practices by employers who have:
Î Interfered with employees acting to protect their rights granted to them under the NLRA, whether they are in a union or not
Î Dominated or interfered with the formation or administration of a union
Î Discriminated against an employee for engaging in union activities
Î Refused to bargain with a union that was lawfully elected to represent employees
Facilitating Settlements: When a charge is determined to have merit, the NLRB encourages parties to resolve cases by settlement rather than litigation, whenever possible.
Deciding Cases: For the NLRB legal process, there are forty administrative law judges and five board members decid-ing cases affecting the relationship between employers, workers, and unions.
Enforcing Orders: When employers do not comply with NLRB orders, the Board then seeks enforcement from the U.S. Court of Appeals.
SLIDE 15
Presenter Notes
ASK: “Can you imagine why corporations and the super wealthy would strategize against the NLRB?”
The NLRB is the Supreme Court of labor rights. Without the NLRB, workers would have:
Î No protection against being fired for trying to organize their co-workers
Î No protection against being fired for discussing their wages with co-workers
Î No protection against adverse employer actions taken because the worker tries to improve workplace safety
Î No protection against an employer in a wage dispute
Here are some examples of the NLRB protecting working people in the workplace:
Î Social media has become the new “water cooler” or break room of workers. Employers have increasingly tried to limit workers’ free speech via social media, so the NLRB is now tasked with applying traditional rules of protection for workers’ “concerted activity” to a newer technology. In 2010, when T-Mobile USA revamped its social networking policy, it made anonymous comments on social media websites an offense that could result in termination. It was the company’s latest attempt to silence workers who had been articulating workplace issues and discussing joining the Communications Workers of America (CWA) on worker forums, Facebook, and Twitter. CWA filed an unfair labor practice charge, asserting that this was a violation of employees’ “protected concerted activity” under the NLRA. But before the case went to trial, T-Mobile USA agreed to a settlement in May of 2011. The company was required to inform all of its employees that they may discuss work-related issues on Facebook and similar websites without fear of reprisal. As companies adapt to 21st century technologies, the NLRB has kept pace to protect workers and their rights to free speech.
Î In 2014, a policy by a CWA-represented company, Purple Communications, limited employees’ use of the employer’s email to “business purposes only.” CWA filed an unfair labor practice charge which challenged the policy. CWA claimed the policy substantially interfered with the exercise of employee rights under Section 7 of the NLRA, granting non-supervisory employees the “right to . . . engage in . . . concerted activities for the purpose of collective
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bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.“ CWA claimed that the employees’ right to use email “should be limited only as required by management interests in production and discipline.“
Î On December 11, 2014, the NLRB ruled that employees who have access to their employer’s email systems may use company email to communicate with each other for non-business purposes during non-working time. The decision, Purple Communications, represents a major policy shift for the NLRB. It overturns its earlier decision in Register Guard, which had held that employees had no statutory right to use their employer’s email systems.
The NLRB is the only governmental force that exists to put limits on employers’ and corporations’ power over workers. Let’s dive into the Board itself and how it is constructed.
Sources
https://www.cwapolitical.org/pages/nlrb_protecting_free_speech_online
http://www.stevenslee.com/nlrb-employees-may-use-employer-email-nonbusiness-purposes-including-union-organizing/
SLIDE 16
Presenter Notes
The NLRB is a five-member board which decides cases between employers, employees, and unions.
Board members are appointed by the president to five-year terms, with Senate consent.
Since NLRB appointments are made by the president, and confirmed by the Senate, the board membership is shaped by political party politics. Depending on the party in the White House and in the Senate at the time, members of the NLRB may be more or less pro-worker or anti-worker.
To be confirmed, NLRB appointees must receive a super-ma-jority (60 votes) in the Senate.
To function, the Board must have a minimum of three members. Without the three members, the board is unable to decide cases or issue regulations.
If the NLRB does not have three members, 80 million private sector workers across the country have no recourse for illegal firing or labor rights violations. Also, the Board would not be able to issue rulings on union election results. Knowing this, what did the right-wing power do? They attacked the board!
SLIDE 17
Presenter Notes
In a big-moneyed attempt to block the people’s interests, the NLRB was nearly forced to stop operating in 2012 and 2013.
As President Bush and Clinton had done, President Obama used his constitutional power to make appointments to the NLRB, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) while Congress was in recess, so those federal agencies could keep running.
However, Republicans in the Senate argued that appoint-ments made to the NLRB, CFPB, and the EPA were invalid because the Senate had not adjourned. Therefore, the
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appointments were not possible, and no one should be added to the boards. In their game plan, the NLRB, the CFPB, and the EPA could be shut down if the president’s appointments were invalidated. These broken Senate rules threatened the democratic process and the functioning of these government agencies.
ASK: “What do these agencies have in common? Why would these particular agencies face so much trouble getting appointments approved so they can function?”
® The fact that these agencies faced a potential shut down is not a coincidence or an accident.
® These agencies protect the majority: the people’s interests. Without these agencies, corporations’ power would be unregulated, effectively disrupting our lives as workers, affecting our personal finances, and leaving the environment unprotected! These agencies create a fairer playing field for the vast majority of American workers and citizens.
SLIDE 18
Presenter Notes
Labor attorney and former NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman stated that the NLRB “literally represents the interests of labor and business—and income inequality, and class issues, and everything that’s wrapped up in what the board does . . . It’s odd now, that organized labor is so reduced and labor law is so paralyzed, but it’s like the opposition won’t be happy until the nail is in the coffin.”
For Liebman, the right-leaning Senators’ resistance to support the programs that support workers characterizes, better than any other government body, the national discus-sion on income inequality and class warfare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/23/nlrb-senate_n_2934910.html
SLIDE 19
Presenter Notes
As class war was being waged on us, we fought back hard!
The “Give Me 5” campaign was birthed, demanding that appointments to the National Labor Relations Board be granted, allowing the board to be fully functioning and able to decide on cases for working people and unions.
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SLIDE 20
Presenter Notes
A broad coalition of labor, civil rights, environmental, finan-cial reform, and community groups organized to push for fully functioning NLRB, CFPB, and EPA.
In 2013, for the Give Me 5 campaign, more than 2 million Americans mobilized and demanded that Senate Major-ity Leader Harry Reid use his constitutional powers to change the procedure on nominations to a simple “yes or no” majority vote, so these agencies would not shut down due to Republican sabotage in the Senate. This type of rule change, if enacted, would have changed the Senate’s power around decision-making nominations. Wanting to maintain their power as is, Republican senators cracked and said they would agree to vote on the nominations just one day before the nominations procedure could be changed. After the possibility of changing the procedure on nominations was announced, enough Republicans told Democrats that they would agree to a vote on the NLRB, CFPB, EPA, and other key nominations.
Power holders, persuaded by protest, were moved to have a vote! The Give Me 5 campaign pressured and organized the Senate!
SLIDE 21
Presenter Notes
Due to the pressure from CWA and our coalition partners, all five NLRB members were confirmed! A few months later, as part of the deal, the general counsel of the NLRB was also confirmed.
SLIDE 22
Presenter Notes
The fight between corporate interests and workers interests is continual, with the rich class waging war on us and us fighting back to get our needs met!
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SLIDE 23
Presenter Notes
There have been some major CWA victories brought about by working people’s pressure on the forces controlling the NLRB!
SLIDE 24
Presenter Notes
From 2004-2010, NLRB complaints were repeatedly issued against T-Mobile USA in different regional offices.
In April, 2014, the general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board moved to consolidate recent unfair labor practice complaints that were brought against the company. T-Mobile USA had been cited for its relentless and escalat-ing attempts over the past 10 years to stop workers from obtaining union representation.
The NLRB decided to combine into one national case three unfair labor practice complaints filed by CWA, which chal-lenged the company’s disciplinary actions targeting union activists and its broad company rules and policies. The
stakes were high for all parties. T-Mobile USA now had to try to defend its systemic anti-union behavior in one big pro-ceeding, and, if unsuccessful, the Board could order broad relief for employees at all T-Mobile USA locations country-wide.
One hearing officer had to hear all complaints, witnesses, and evidence regarding T-Mobile’s efforts to block workers from voting for union representation, to retaliate against activists, and to employ anti-union bullying tactics. The Board’s decision recognized that it was time for a change in the agency’s enforcement strategy and clearly responded to the history of unfair labor practices by T-Mobile USA.
It was a great win, because it set precedent for case consol-idation against a national company. This allows the NLRB to issue more effective remedies to stop outrageous conduct from T-Mobile USA and others.
Let’s check out more wins!
www.cwapolitical.org/news/entry/nlrb_takes_extraordinary_action_to_consolidate_complaints_against_t-mobile_
SLIDE 25
Presenter Notes
Fast food and retail workers took on a fight in 2013 for a com-plete change in working conditions, treatment and wages.
Let’s look at some of the conditions faced by our sisters and brothers.
In 2013, the total compensation of McDonald’s CEO, Donald Thompson, was $9,496,664.
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The median wage for a fast-food worker was $8.90 an hour. A McDonald’s worker working overtime for nearly four months straight would have made as much as the compa-ny’s former CEO earned in one hour.
Studies showed that more than 50% of front-line fast-food workers were relying on some form of government assis-tance to sustain themselves.
(University of California-Berkeley and the University of Illi-nois at Urbana-Champaign study)
While McDonald’s has reaped enormous profits from their workers’ productivity, they continue to attempt to distance themselves from responsibility over the wages, benefits, and working conditions of their workers.
SLIDE 26
Presenter Notes
In June of 2014, the NLRB’s general counsel determined that McDonald’s would be liable as a joint employer in these kinds of situations. This means McDonald’s won’t be able to hide behind the franchisee.
The franchising core company of McDonald’s tried to argue that it was not responsible for ill practices toward workers, since the countrywide restaurants have different franchisee owners, essentially unconnected to one another. Therefore, issues such as treatment, salary, and benefits of workers would need to be addressed for every individual McDonald’s.
One month later, in favor of striking fast food workers, the NLRB authorized 43 complaints against McDonald’s, USA, LLC, the core company.
The NLRB General Counsel investigated the charges alleg-ing that the McDonald’s franchise violated the rights of workers as a result of activities surrounding the fast food strikes and protests. It was determined that McDonald’s should be considered a joint employer with its franchisees and could no longer hide behind the big name.
This decision is a major step forward in keeping multi-bil-lion-dollar corporations accountable to their workers.
The boldness of thousands of fed-up working people made this decision possible!
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Organizing-Bargaining/What-the-NLRB-Announcement-on-McDonald-s-Means
SLIDE 27
Presenter Notes
Another great CWA NLRB win was the CNN case, which started in 2003 and ended in 2014!
CNN replaced a unionized subcontractor, Team Video Services (TVS), that provided the network with audio and video technicians, with an in-house non-union workforce in its Washington and New York offices.
The NLRB found that CNN failed “to bargain with the union about the decision to terminate the subcontracts,” made “coercive (intim-idating) statements,” and implemented “a hiring plan designed to limit the number of discharged TVS employees . . . in order to avoid a successorship bargaining obligation.”
http://www.nabet31.org/cnn-nlrb-case-desc-faq
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SLIDE 28
Presenter Notes
After 11 years, CNN employees finally gained a measure of justice!
In September, 2014, the NLRB found “overwhelming” evidence of anti-union activity within the cable news giant. The NLRB ordered that any unionized work that was outsourced be restored. More specifically, they ruled against the company’s fake re-organizing scheme to get rid of unionized workers. CNN was ordered to “make whole” more than 300 employees who were fired. Also, they ordered the replenishing of the benefits of union representation. CNN was forced to rehire about 100 workers and to compensate 200 more employees who continued to work at the company without the ben-efits of a union contract.
This amounted to tens of millions of dollars that our organizing forced CNN to pay to workers!
http://www.nabetcwa.org/news/entry/justice_at_cnn_after_11_years
SLIDE 29
Presenter Notes
Power allows nothing without demand! All of the victories high-lighted took an investment of working people and CWA to be aware, involved, strategic, and dedicated to how we engage with systems to change our outcomes.
There are many victories that were not mentioned, but that have been essential to workers’ progression.
ASK: “Are there any national CWA past victories that anyone wants briefly to share?”
DO: Take 2 responses.
Remember, this is class warfare, and the rich and elite are always seeking to strike down what we gain. President Trump has already appointed a board which seeks to undo the very wins we have high-lighted. Here is what the AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, had to say about the new appointees:
“Marvin Kaplan has never practiced labor law, and his experience comes from crafting legislation for politicians to rig the rules against working people. William Emanuel has a long record of practicing labor law on behalf of employers, most recently at one of the most infamous union-busting law firms in the country. On their face, the résumés of both nominees appear to be in direct conflict with the mission of the NLRB.“
Not only has the board been flipped from majority liberal to con-servative, the Trump administration is cutting funding for the NLRB while ramping up funding for the agency that goes to bat for big business, the Office of Labor-Management Standards.
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The current Trump-created board has already been rolling out anti-worker decisions, for example:
Back in 2014, the NLRB ruled that companies can’t dodge their responsibilities to their workers just by outsourcing management duties to subcontractors or franchisees.
ASK: “Does anyone remember this fight?”
® The McDonald’s Franchise decision. Yes, this was just overturned.
Another example of the NLRB reversing decisions is the overturn-ing of a 2011 ruling that helped workers form smaller unions within a single larger workplace, now making it extremely hard to unionize large worksites.
On top of the addition of corporate board members, President Trump has also chosen a new NLRB general counsel, who func-tions as a kind of prosecutor and brings cases before the board. While President Obama’s nominees aggressively pursued big busi-nesses for unfair labor practices, Trump’s pick, Peter Robb, has already signaled that he intends to unwind much of what his pre-decessors did.
ASK: “All of the updates about our past victories are essential, because they affirm that the reality we need IS possible, but only when we what?”
® Organize!
The moments when we are distracted, asleep, unaware, disen-gaged, confused, and disorganized are the moments when the 1% corporate structure hammers down on us. We have to be involved in the fight at every level and in every way in order to create a reality that is rooted in justice!
The fight continues!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/afl-cio-attacks-trumps-nlrb-nominees
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-workers-union-rights-2017_us_5a42b5b1e4b025f99e187ea5
