March/April 2006 Newsletter

 

President's Corner

I would like to thank the Qwest members of the local for their hard work and perseverance during the last two months. We have been serving our customers with the same type of service we have done for over 50 years. It is questionable how management can over-react to a "Washington Rain" and impose mandatory overtime. As you recall in early January, we were asked to lift the 8 hour cap on mandatory overtime. We did not. I want to personally thank each member who understood why we did not bend on this issue and stood behind our decision. We must live up to our contract. As you recall we had a 13 day strike in '98 over this very subject! For those of you who volunteered for more than 8 during this time, hats off to you. For those who didn't, I understand you have a life away from work. It all worked out.

We have been in negotiations with management on new local agreements. They have not been finalized yet, but know that they will be slightly different this time around. Overtime will be tracked in most outside work groups by weekly and yearly accumulations. There will be a possibility of forcing, so know that each of you should work some O.T. going forward or get forced later in the year. It is all about equalizing the overtime. Management plans to manage to the 49th hour. We will see if they can do it.

I attended New Officer Training here in Tacoma with Jake Williams and Gregg Sherwood at the end of January. Tacoma was one of 3 locations selected by District 7, we had over 60 delegates. We had a lunch time rally at the new downtown Marriott Hotel. They have chosen to go non union and we picketed with Unite Here Local 8 to help them with their fight.

  		 

Stories in this issue:

February 27, and 28th, I attended a CWA/Qwest Presidents meeting in Denver. We listened to Notebaert and his staff give their presentation on the state of the company. The overriding theme is to beat Cox and Comcast and to be number one in the JD Powers surveys. They see them as our leading competition. Qwest will continue to look for acquisitions and improve technology. He said we will be trying to push our bandwidth out. He stated currently we have a 70% customer DSL availability now in the 1.5 to 3 meg speed. We will be trying to develop it out over 20 meg in the near term. His comments regarding the Pension fund; we now have more pensioners than active employees. The fund is over 100% funded. He stated Qwest has never made a profit. He stated there is a chance to cross over the profitability line in 2006. The comments were made before the latest AT&T/BellSouth announcement.

I would like every Qwest member to know that this company is going to make us do more with less. Productivity is going to be the number one thing they will push. The rumor is that first level managers have been given the directive to identify the bottom 5% and get them up to speed or get them out, (not optional). Have you noticed the push to have you out of the garage in 15 minutes? It is all about adding 1 more job per day to all techs. By April or May, they expect to add a 2nd job per day. My advice to you is to follow every Technician Expectation, Motor Vehicle Expectation, Safety Expectation etc; they throw down in front of you. Keep a personal diary of every work operation you perform. When time comes for your personal review you will be prepared to contradict the company version of your performance. They hired UPS to study their business model and productivity plan. I'm not impressed.

V.P. over Network, Barry Allen made an interesting comment. He lays awake at night worrying about his aging workforce and what to do about it. We heard no answer to this question. He also stated they promoted 100 techs last year to management. They want to bring up people from the tools. There must be a message there, but I don't know why one would want it. Thanks for all you do!

In solidarity,

Randy Grams, President

AFL-CIO Launches Fair Share Campaign in Dozens of States

To ensure the largest corporations stop shifting health care insurance costs onto workers, taxpayers and other businesses, the AFL-CIO is spearheading a Fair Share Health Care campaign with working families, their unions and community allies mobilizing around Fair Share legislation in dozens of states.

Fair Share legislation has been introduced in Florida, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Wisconsin in the 2006 session and is in the pipeline in more than 20 other states. On Jan. 23, the Oregon AFL-CIO filed a ballot initiative to put Fair Share Health Care on November's ballot.

In Washington State, more than 200 union members from AFL-CIO unions, the unaffiliated United Food and Commercial Workers and other unions attended the Fair Share Health Care hearings and lobbied lawmakers.

In general, Fair Share Health Care legislation requires large, profitable corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payroll to provide health care benefits for their employees or pay into a state health care fund. Fair Share will reduce the price taxpayers pay to cover profitable employers' employee expenses, ease the financial strain states face in growing Medicaid costs and help level the playing field between companies that provide good jobs and benefits and those that don't.

"Most large employers do provide health care. The idea here is to hold the ones who don't accountable so they are not undermining the structure of those who do," says Rep. Eileen Cody (D), who sponsored the Fair Share bill in Washington.

Several business owners also testified in favor of the Fair Share Health Care legislation, including Craig Cole, CEO of the 29-strore chain Brown & Cole Stores. "The real problem here-the public is picking up the tab for what should be Wal-Mart's responsibility," he said.

Employers Must Pay Their Fair Share

Unions and Their Allies Are Ensuring Corporations Don't Pass Health Care Costs to Taxpayers

Jan. 25 - In Olympia, Wash., where Paul Henry receives health care coverage working at a grocery store, he worries that large employers who don't provide sufficient employer health care are creating a pattern that will undermine his own family's health coverage. Henry also doesn't like his tax dollars subsidizing those same companies, including Wal-Mart, whose workers are forced to rely on Medicaid or the state-subsidized Basic Health Plan.

Speaking Jan. 19 to a state Senate committee hearing on a bill that would require the state's largest employers to pay a percentage of their employees' health care costs, Henry said his employer-provided health insurance gives him "peace of mind" in taking care of his family.

A confidential state report obtained this week by The Seattle Times shows more than 3,100 Wal-Mart employees in the state-about 20 percent of its workforce-receive tax-payer funded health care for themselves or their families. The 3,100-plus workers is nearly double the total for any other company in the state. More than half of the Wal-Mart employees who received federal Medicaid benefits-nearly 1,800-were full-time workers.

When such large companies as Wal-Mart don't provide affordable health care for their workers, it puts companies that pay good wages and offer decent benefits at a competitive disadvantage, says Robby Stern, special assistant to the president of the Washington State Labor Council.

"It's inhumane to let people go without health insurance," said Stern, who also testified before the Washington State committee. Stern and other Washington activists are seeking to build on recent success in Maryland, where working families and their allies in the state legislature succeeded Jan. 12 in passing a bill to ensure employers pay their fair share.

Corporations Cut Health Coverage While Number of Uninsured Soar

The number of Americans without health insurance continues to climb-from 41 million in 2000 to 46 million in 2004, according to government statistics-even as more corporations are cutting back employer-based health coverage. In 2000, 69 percent of firms offered health coverage to workers, but in 2005 that percentage dropped to just 60 percent. In fact, more than a quarter of all firms with more than 500 employees don't offer employer-based health insurance for workers and their families, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan private foundation that supports independent research into health care issues.

As more firms drop health insurance coverage, workers, taxpayers and other businesses are forced to pick up the tab. Some workers buy their own health insurance or pay out-of-pocket for health care costs. Other workers and their families are forced to turn to such taxpayer-funded programs as Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program, costing taxpayers some $21 billion a year, according to the Commonwealth Fund.

For example, 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million U.S. workers are either uninsured or on Medicaid, according to Wal-Mart's own information. In addition, fewer than half of Wal-Mart's workers have health care coverage on the job, according to an October 2003 AFL-CIO report.

As a result, many Wal-Mart workers and their families turn to emergency rooms and other public health services as their only health care option. In 12 of the 13 states where data has been released and analyzed, Wal-Mart workers rely on public health programs more than workers from any other company in those states.

The Commonwealth Fund also estimated employers with employee health coverage are forced to spend about $31 billion a year to cover the cost of employees shifting the health care costs of their uninsured family members to their employer-provided coverage.

With Republican extremists roadblocking working family legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.-Republicans hold a majority in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate-union activists and their allies are turning to the states to win crucial working family legislation on improving access to health care, raising the minimum wage and more.

Service Anniversaries and Retirements

March  Paul Brown 10, Linda Noble 10, Ron Walsh 10, Bill Spina 10.

April: Judy Eagle 30, Linda Moreno 30, Jake Williams 15, Tracy McDonald 10, Carey Grant 10, Thinh Vu 10.

Retirements: Vic Cissell Customer Data Tech, Qwest, 32 years. Judy Eagle, Central Office Tech Qwest, 30 years. Jim Christiansen, Central Office Tech Qwest, 38 years.

Congratulations to All!

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