President’s CornerWhere has the time gone? It is almost Thanksgiving and like many of you I feel like it is still summer. The elections are over, Halloween has come and gone and we are getting close to the New Year. What the 2005 year will bring is unsure. Will we still be Qwest? Will we be purchased or absorbed by another company.? The one thing we know for sure is that our collective bargaining agreement expires in August. If you have not started planning for a strike, you must start now!! The political climate is not conclusive for bargaining, the state of the company is weak and our needs in the new contract are great. Don’t be the one crossing the picket line because you were not financially prepared to strike. Locally the Seattle, Valley and Tacoma locals met with Kevin Wilson, Peggy Jefferson, Charlene Ayabe and Bob Greenwood to discuss the company’s failure to live up to our agreements on S.B.A. (pager) and the so called but non existent 49 hour rule. After long conducive discussions Mr. Greenwood agreed to adhere to the policies as negotiated in the local agreements. That was a case of all three locals being on the same page and sticking to their guns Local 7804 wants to welcome new or potential new members from National Network Services (Classic Qwest), the Outside Sales Department and from Consumer Retail. Please introduce yourselves as you interface with each other. In this newsletter you are being sent an information request on bargaining proposals. Please take the time to fill out and return to the local this form. It is your opportunity to be heard directly. Quite often I get the complaint that one work group or another is not being represented. That they got the short straw in the contract. Well the only way I can help prevent this is to recommend strongly that you lend your thoughts through the proposals request before 12-15-05, it is your first vote on the contract. Lastly I want to wish all member of Local 7804 a happy holiday season and a prosperous new year. Clay Bowlby |
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Free Money For Your College-Age ChildrenThirty partial college scholarships of $3,000 each are being offered for the 2005-2006 school year. Winners, selected in a lottery drawing, also will receive second-year scholarships of the same amount contingent upon satisfactory academic accomplishment Eligible for the awards are CWA members and their spouses, children and grandchildren, including those of retired or deceased members. Following are the details and further information. CWA Joe Beirne Foundation Scholarship Program Scholarship Fund Fact Sheet Origin The CWA Joe Beirne Foundation was established in October 1974 by the Communications Workers of America Executive Board to honor the name and memory of the founding President of CWA, who served for more than 30 years. In his capacity as the first CWA President, Joe Beirne took great pride in the roles he played in the fields of education and learning and other areas of social concern. On April 26, 1999, the CWA Executive Board voted to combine the Joseph Anthony Beirne Memorial Foundation and the Ray Hackney Scholarship Fund, thereby creating the CWA Joe Beirne Foundation. Eligibility CWA members, their spouses, children and grandchildren (including dependents of laid-off, retired or deceased CWA members) may apply. Applicants must be high school graduates or at least high school students who will graduate during the year in which they apply. Undergraduate and graduate students returning to schooling may also apply. Prior winners may not reapply. Scholarships Thirty (30) two-year scholarships, to be paid at the rate of $3,000 annually, are awarded each year to applicants from the U.S.A. and Canada. A second-year award is contingent on academic accomplishment of the first year. Dates Applications are accepted during the months of November through March. Final deadline is March 31, 2005. Selections: Winners are chosen by lottery drawing and only winners will be notified. Study Requirements: No specific studies are required. Scholarship winners may pursue whatever courses they wish. Funding: The CWA Joe Beirne Foundation has been built up by voluntary contributions and is self-perpetuating. Contributions and pledges are received from CWA Locals, members and officers. Applications can be found on-line at http://www.cwa-union.org/members/beirne/Application.asp. If you don’t apply, you won’t be chosen. Conventional Wisdomby Rick Beaver Due to an editorial oversight, Rick’s article was foreshortened in the previous newsletter. We rerun it now in its entirety. Mea Culpa Ed. CWA Annual Convention At the end of August, I was given the opportunity to attend the National CWA Convention in Anaheim,”Kaaleefornia”. My preconception of a convention, like many of yours, was too many hours of sitting, listening to boring speeches and not enough hours of evening revelry and fun! Or too much of each! Maybe I got lucky. Maybe I went to the one convention in a hundred years that was interesting, informative and involving. This was the first time I had ever been to a convention. I was impressed by the diversity of professions under the CWA umbrella, everyone from flight attendants to school teachers to communications workers. They all had the one common reason for being part of the CWA. That is to protect the workers they represent, as much as possible, from the stupid regressive decisions their employers make. To try and keep things fair, but most of all these delegates at the convention are the buffer for the employees and the people that the management has to look over their shoulder for when trying to get away with something. As much information, insights, and news as we received during the actual convention (one day 8am to 9:30pm with only 1 ½ hour lunch), I also got before and after actual convention hours, just as much information. Before 8am, standing around with coffee cups talking to Bill from SBC, or going to lunch with a group from Verizon, or partaking of the brew in the evening at a hosted event and talking to people from Michigan. There was not one conversation the whole time that did not involve anything other than things in our work environments. If I can put this in to words, I will try….. The most impressionable thing that I came away with was that all the hundreds of people at this convention were basically volunteers. Those from the larger locals are full time union representatives and have to deal with union business 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Those of us from smaller locals work our jobs 8 hours a day and on top of that we help members deal with issues. Believe it or not, we help management deal with some issues. Your local officers, executive board members, and stewards, have all decided to take on their positions to try to make this a better place to work and try to protect all of us. After spending 3 days with officers of locals from all over the country I can tell you, without a doubt, that our local is one of the best represented, connected and respected in Qwest. I was proud to be there on your behalf. Thank you, Avaya NewsAvaya - Variable Workforce Executive Level Grievance status 11/19/2004OPT IN/OPT OUT Grievance: We just had the first arbitration hearing on the issue yesterday. The final (hopefully) hearing is scheduled for January 5th and 6th. The executive level grievance only covers the 1st and 2nd quarters. After we get the results of that, the issue of payment for the remaining quarters in which the Union did not agree to Opt out of certain GCAs will be addressed. As we get new information, it will be posted on the C&T Web site under the Avaya bargaining unit. In Unity, 11/16/2004 Yesterday CWA and IBEW met with Avaya VP Francis Scricco and Labor Relations VP Tom Burk in an effort to extend the Variable Workforce agreement. The Company was not interested in any extension except on their terms, which would include laying off core employees while keeping variable employees. Neither Union could agree to that. Therefore, per the contract, the Variable workforce agreement will expire on December 1, 2004. Any agreements or committees tied to the VWF language will also expire. The Company also told us that, with the expiration of the VWF agreement, they can now “reduce capacity” with a surplus. They indicated the surplus number was 350 to 400 core technicians. Apparently Avaya has decided to follow in the footsteps of Lucent and AT&T and eliminate the unionized workforce. Since that is the route they are taking, it should motivate us to do whatever we can to ensure Avaya’s strategy fails. Ever since Avaya spun off from Lucent, the Union has tried to help make them successful, and we had a vested interest in doing that; however, we can no longer cooperate if their success means our demise. There should be no joint efforts to help Avaya going forward unless contractually required. It is up to you to get the message to Avaya. -- AVAYA’s Greed Exceeds its Need—MOBILIZE—MOBILIZE—MOBILIZE -- In Unity, Association of USWest RetireesA visit to http://www.uswestretiree.org/ will inform you of many issues and situations that effect you, a USWest retiree. There are retirement, legislative, and networking links, plus many other helps. Don’t be left out of the loop. You may be retired, but you are still linked to the company you left.Good and WelfareService Anniversaries November; Brian Pope 25, Mark Niehaus 25, Norm Holt 25. Craig Mendenhall 5, Joshua Davis 5, Eric Hartlieb 5, Christopher Dubisette 5, Steve Heward 5, Brian Smith 5, James Williams 5, Steve Doyle 5, Harry Berg 5, Gil Montoya 5, Ryan Fuqua 5. December; Mike Fuqua 30. Retirees: Donna McPherson (Qwest) 39 years, Jim Scott (Qwest) 31 years New Members: Jeremy Peek; Brandie Verrett, Arthur Love, Kimberly Wilson. |
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