Monthly Archives: June 2011

Regional Bargaining Report #6

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Thursday  June 30, 2011

CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today at the Rye Town Hilton in Rye, NY to continue discussions on health care. The Regional Committee has requested additional data and information from the Company and is scheduled to resume negotiations at 9 AM tomorrow.

Preparations are being made for strike votes to be held in all locals. Plans are also being made for a Rally at Verizon Headquarters in New York City at 140 West Street on July 30, 2011. We will supply more details next week but it is time to set aside this date and make plans to attend this Rally. Members from all three Districts from New England to Virginia as well as IBEW members from NY, NE, NJ and Pennsylvania will be attending.

We need to continue to stand strong and get our message out that we are more committed than  we’ve ever been to fight to protect our wages, benefits and working conditions.

Now more than ever we need to mobilize! 

Mobilize!  –  Mobilize!  –  Mobilize!

Unity At Verizon

Company Presents Proposals on Major Issues to CWA & IBEW

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To: All US-based Wireline, VSO and Corporate Management & East Associates

NOTE TO SUPERVISORS OF EAST ASSOCIATES – Please post Bargaining News on local bulletin boards and provide a copy to East associates who do not have email.

This week, Verizon presented comprehensive proposals to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) for the Mid-Atlantic, New England and New York contracts that expire Aug. 6.

Specifically, the company presented proposals on major issues including benefits, sales incentives, managing the work and workforce, time-off, absence, and balancing work/life demands. With respect to health care, the company’s proposals include providing the same full slate of market-competitive medical benefits that apply to the vast majority of other Verizon employees.

The company’s proposals are in alignment with the highly competitive marketplace while balancing the interests of all Verizon stakeholders – employees, customers and investors.  These proposals are designed to continue to provide employees with a great place to work where they will receive good benefits.

The parties are negotiating new collective bargaining agreements covering about 45,000 union-represented wireline employees in Verizon’s eastern wireline service region. In all, company and union representatives are negotiating 27 different contracts that cover operations in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Beginning July 1, the parties will recess for the holiday weekend. Common Issues bargaining, which covers major topics that apply across all of the contracts, is scheduled to resume on July 18 when the CWA returns from its annual convention. There are plans to hold local bargaining talks with the IBEW between July 5 and July 17.

Verizon will keep employees informed throughout the negotiations, issuing Bargaining News bulletins as developments warrant.

Tape Update!

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Transcript: Executive Vice President Angel Feliciano Speaking;

“CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today at the Rye Town Hilton in Rye, NY to continue discussions on health care. The Regional Committee has requested additional data and information from the Company and is scheduled to resume negotiations at 9 AM tomorrow.

Preparations are being made for strike votes to be held in all locals. Plans are also being made for a Rally at Verizon Headquarters in New York City at 140 West Street on July 30, 2011. We will supply more details next week but it is time to set aside this date and make plans to attend this Rally. Members from all three Districts from New England to Virginia as well as IBEW members from NY, NE, NJ and Pennsylvania will be attending.

We need to continue to stand strong and get our message out that we are more committed than  we’ve ever been to fight to protect our wages, benefits and working conditions.

Now more than ever we need to mobilize! 

Mobilize!  –  Mobilize!  –  Mobilize!

Thank you and please stay in touch with this tape.”

Regional Bargaining Report #5 – Outrageous Proposals From Verizon

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Wednesday June 29, 2011

CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today at the Rye Town Hilton in Rye, NY. CWA Districts 2, & 13 and the IBEW Locals 827 and 1944 Regional Bargaining Teams met with the Company today In Philadelphia. Your Union Bargaining teams collectively have decades of bargaining experience. In all of our experience we have never seen such an aggressive agenda as the package of proposals the Company brought to the table today. Verizon has made it clear they want to take away almost every protection we have as Union workers.

Verizon wants to:

Wages:

  • Wages – both annual and progression increases will be tied to your yearly evaluation.  If you receive a “Does Not Meet Position Requirements” you will not receive an increase
  • Eliminate Night and Saturday Differential
  • Eliminate Sunday premium pay
  • Eliminate Double Time for hours worked past 49 in a week
  • Eliminate all Overtime Caps
  • Eliminate city allowances
  • Create new job titles for the consumer and business call centers that would work on a commission based wage schedule

Pensions:

  • Eliminate pension accruals. For anyone currently on the payroll your pension will be frozen as of December 31, 2011 and after that, there will be no more pension plan
  • Eliminate the Pension Cash-Out option
  • Modify the 401(k) Plan and the CPS
  • Eliminate the Sickness Death Benefit

Benefits:

  • Eliminate the current health care, prescription, dental, and vision plans and offer plans with high deductibles and contributions
  • Eliminate accident disability benefits
  • Cut in half the sickness disability benefits
  • Reduce sick time pay to 5 days per year for those members with 20 or more years, 4 days for those with 15-20 years, 3 days for those with 7-15 years, 2 days for those with 2-7 years and 0 days for those with less than 2 years
  • Reduce Paid Holidays to (7)

Job Security:

  • Eliminate the Job Security Provisions for all employees
  • Eliminate the Movement of Work Protection
  • Eliminate the 35 mile transfer provision
  • Eliminate provisions in Force Adjustment Plan
  • Eliminate New Contracting Initiatives agreement-which would allow them to increase the level of contracting

Other:

  • Eliminate the Next Step Program
  • Eliminate the half day on Christmas Eve
  • Reduce the notice to the Union on Major technological changes from 6 months to 30 days
  • Eliminate the Dependent Care Reimbursement Fund

This is not a Company facing a financial crisis. They are extremely profitable. This is not a Company coming to its union employees seeking ways to work together to face the challenges of the future.

Their proposals seek to destroy our future.

We need to send a very clear message that this is not acceptable, that we will not be passive as they seek to gut our contract.

Districts 1, 2, and 13 as well as the IBEW in New York, New England,

New Jersey and Pennsylvania stand unified and ready to fight.

 We stand unified and ready to fight for your Wages, Benefits, and Working Conditions.

We stand unified and ready to fight for the middle class standard of living that you have earned and rightfully deserve to keep.

Now more than ever we need to mobilize!

 Mobilize! Mobilize! Mobilize!

Outrageous healthcare proposal flyer

Unity At Verizon

Reginal Bargaining Report #4

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Jun 28, 2011

CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today. At the Regional table we discussed the benefit proposal which was passed last week. Some of the retrogressive proposals are:

  • The Company has proposed to terminate the major health benefit plans that CWA has negotiated over decades.
  • The company is demanding premium contributions for both the medical plan and the dental plan.
  • In the first year, the medical plan premiums for a single employee would range from $390 a year to $1,420 a year, depending on the plan they choose.
  • For a family, the medical plan premium would range from $1,380 a year to $3,810 a year, depending on the plan they choose.
  • Premiums would increase in each year after that.
  • The company wants to impose premiums for retirees as well.  For pre-Medicare retirees, a single retiree could pay somewhere between $290 and $1,320 depending on they plan they choose.  A pre-Medicare retiree with a family could pay between $1,280 and $3,710 depending on the plan they choose.
  • Medicare retirees could pay between $145 and $960 a year depending on the plan they enroll in if they are single, and between $640 and $2,155 a year depending on the plan they choose.
  • Premiums for the dental plan would be up to $185 per year for a single employee and up to $435 per year for a family, depending on the plan they choose.
  • Retirees would also have to pay for dental coverage, the same rates as active employees.
  • The most drastic changes are proposed in the medical plan.  The company proposed to eliminate the PPOs and network plans that have been in place for decades and replace them with high deductible health plans.
  • Before the plan would begin to pay any benefits, a single employee would have to pay $1,000 and a family would have to pay $3,000.
  • In other words, the company is proposing to shift thousands of dollars in health costs to our members, without offering any improvements in health care quality or any support for our members to navigate the health care system.  They are saying “You’re On Your Own”  to our members and their families who need quality, affordable health care.

Now more than ever we need to mobilize

Mobilize  – Mobilize  – Mobilize

By-Laws Proposals

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Local 1101

275 Seventh Avenue (17th Floor)
New York, NY 10001
(212) 633-2666 FAX: (212) 633-8337
 Email: feliciano@cwa1101.org

A FEW SHORT MONTHS AGO THE MEMBERSHIP OF THIS LOCAL VOTED OVERWHELMINGLY TO ADOPT A REASONABLE, BALANCED SET OF BY-LAWS PROPOSALS.

Your vote was invalidated because of two boxes that gave you the convenience of saying “yes” or “no” to all proposals even though the ballot gave YOU the choice of voting in a block or by line item. Slightly under 2,000 members made their voices heard and voted, their vote was wiped out due to block voting. The National Union has no objection to us sending this important proposal back out for a vote. The only change is the block voting option. Now it is up to you to vote!

This proposal is more important than ever:

  • Our Local has continued to shrink, like every other Local in CWA. The Central Division has shrunk to approximately 85 members, less than is needed to get on a ballot!
  • Our Brothers and Sisters in the Healthcare field are locked in a battle for a new contract, with an employer who has hired the notorious Jackson and Lewis union busting law firm to negotiate their contract, yet they still have no elected representative on the Executive Board.
  • Our Brothers and Sisters in AT&T will be negotiating their contract next year, and will be facing the same challenges we are facing with Verizon, and without an elected representative on the Executive Board.
  • In Verizon, we are currently negotiating with an employer determined to break this Union and re-write our contract, yet our Local is bleeding because of lost Membership. The proposals to eliminate one position (Central) and combine two (Secretary and Treasurer) will more then pay for the two positions and stop the bleeding in our treasury.
  • It is important to note that many of our Sister Locals, including the National Union, are in the process of making the exact same changes, for the exact same reason: loss of Membership.
  • Our Retirement Trust Fund, which we are the only Local in the country to have, is overfunded. Suspending the contributions will allow our Local to continue to operate in the black. It is important to note that the trust can only be used for that benefit, and can never be done away with or disbursed without a specific by-laws change.

It is time to step forward and put our Local on sound financial footing.

I urge you, PLEASE take the time to vote, and PLEASE support these proposals.

Angel Feliciano
Executive Vice-President
Chairperson – By-Laws Committee
_________________________________________________________________________

Previous 1101 By-Laws Articles:

By-Law Election Declared Null & Void

The Members Have Spoken

To Our Fellow Members

New York Votes In Favor Of Marriage Equality

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg (holding the flag), Senator Tom Duane, Speaker Christine Quinn and Governor Andrew Cuomo (pictured left to right).

The state of New York has now become the sixth in the United States to embrace marriage equality. After much impassioned debate, and the insertion of a handful of religious exemptions to appease the right, the New York state Congress passed marriage equity legislation late Friday evening by a 33 to 29 vote. The law, signed by Cuomo, takes effect in 30 days.

Governor Andrew Cuomo was the star of yesterday’s 42d annual gay-pride parade in New York City, which became a joyful celebration of last week’s state Senate vote to legalize same-sex marriage.

Much of the cheering at the parade was aimed at Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, who made legalization of same-sex marriage a part of his election campaign and then led the fight for its approval in the Republican-controlled Senate.

With Unity We Win At Verizon!

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Verizon bargaining began Wednesday, June 22 and the company is on the attack. That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: Districts 1, 2, and 13 and IBEW stand united and ready to fight for the good union jobs and middle class standard of living we’ve earned.
Join the mobilization!
Watch the video and share it with your co-workers:

Regional Bargaining Report #3

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Friday June 24, 2011

CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today. At the Regional table the Company gave us a proposal on Health Benefits. Verizon management had made it clear in their opening remarks on Wednesday that their goal in this round of bargaining was to erode our standard of living and the many hard fought for gains we have made through our more than sixty years of contract negotiations.

The Company proposed today to replace the MEP HCPPO and the HCN plan with two inferior plans and to vastly increase deductibles, out of pocket maximums and to add employee contributions. This proposal would also add considerable cost to retirees by implementing this plan. Retirees would begin paying annual contributions as well as paying more for their benefits with higher deductibles and higher out of pocket maximums.

The committee spent the day discussing these new plans with the company and will evaluate the plans over the weekend. The Company seems intent on making the plans so expensive that no one will be able to afford to use them.

We have told the company that we are prepared to work with them to help them cut cost with the Health Benefits but we are not prepared to shift the cost of those benefits to our members. We fought too hard for these plans, these benefits and our members and their employees deserve the best health care coverage from a company that is extremely profitable.

We have recessed for the weekend and will reconvene with the Regional Bargaining Committee on Tuesday. Most of the Local committees will be reconvening on Monday.

Mobilize! – Mobilize! – Mobilize!