SEIU-USWW janitors, who were laid off across the street by JP Morgan Chase, joined the hotel workers on their picket lines at the Century City Hyatt.

Let’s Check the Facts:

VERIZON lost the arbitration on the subject of declaring an entire unit surplus, so it can replace employees with Contractors. January 2010 CWA prevailed in an arbitration case involving the Building Services Technicians, (BST’s). Verizon declared the entire BST title surplus. Some of the employees believed VERIZON and were intimidated into taking the ISP offer. The very next day, VERIZON replaces and backfills these BST positions with Contractors. There was no surplus! Verizon was ordered to reinstate the
BST’s.

What VERIZON doesn’t want you to know about its proposed ISP offer. After you, the Membership, ratified the current Contract between CWA and Verizon on May 24, 2010, Verizon wants to now add a new clause to the ISP language that’s not found in any other bargaining unit throughout the Nation! Verizon proposed to give itself the right to surplus current
employees and replace all with Contractors. The proposal states, VERIZON will have “exclusive right to determine and declare surplus as part of the offer for any reason, including contracting out work and the Union waives the right to challenge such surplus determinations and declarations in arbitration or in any other forum.”

In essence, VERIZON is offering a few employees a bribe, a buy-out, so it can stir up sympathy for its cause, to replace current employees with contract employees! Presently, VERIZON is refusing to remove this language, so your Union is standing with you, protecting the interest of 5,000 employees covered by the current Contract and REJECTS VERIZON’s offer as it stands.

Why did VERIZON start the Anti-Union rumors and get the July 9, 2010 internal email message to you? Verizon wants you to believe that CWA would reject a proposal favorable to the membership.

VERIZON hasn’t even provided dates for this proposed surplus offer.

So why the July 9, 2010 email? Is this another bribe and scare tactic?

After 14 weeks of bargaining and strong support from you, the members, VERIZON wants to break your Union Solidarity. VERIZON‘s proposal is nothing more than circumventing the arbitrator’s binding ruling. Verizon does not want THE MOMENTUM DURING BARGAINING, FOURTEEN WEEKS OF UNION SUPPORT AND MOBILIZATON, TO CONTINUE. Don’t fall
victim to VERIZON’s half truths,

Get the Facts

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A state appellate court on Friday sided with the Schwarzenegger administration in its attempt to temporarily impose the federal minimum wage on tens of thousands of state workers.

It was not immediately clear how the ruling would affect Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s order a day earlier to pay 200,000 state workers the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour as the state wrestles with a budget crisis.

The state controller, who cuts state paychecks, has refused to comply with the order. Friday’s ruling affirms a lower-court decision in favor of the administration in a lawsuit filed two years ago after the governor’s first attempt to impose the minimum wage.

The latest ruling from the California 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento concludes that state Controller John Chiang cannot ignore the minimum wage order from the state Department of Personnel Administration.

It says “the DPA has the authority to direct the controller to defer salary payments in excess of federally mandated minimum wages when appropriations for the salaries are lacking due to a budget impasse.”

But Chiang said in a news release that he interpreted the court ruling to mean that his office would not have to comply with the executive order if it was practically infeasible to do so.

“I will move quickly to ask the courts to definitively resolve the issue of whether our current payroll system is capable of complying with the minimum wage order in a way that protects taxpayers from billions of dollars in fines and penalties,” Chiang said in the statement.

The Republican governor issued the order this week on the first day of the new fiscal year because the state remains without a budget, as lawmakers remain far apart on ways to close California’s $19 billion deficit.

Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger’s personnel department, said the ruling means the controller’s office must follow the minimum wage order.

“This underscores the fact that everyone loses when we have a budget impasse. Every day the Legislature fails to deliver a budget costs the state $50 million,” Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said.

Workers will receive full back pay once a budget is passed. In the meantime, state employees such as Rhonda Smith say they will be hurting. They are just ending more than a year of three-day-a-month furloughs that cut their pay by 14 percent.

“It’s a little scary,” said Smith, 39, who joined the Department of Water Resources three weeks ago. “I’ve got bills, rent, insurance, a car. I like to have groceries at home. I don’t know what this is going to do.”

She said the believed the governor was using state workers as pawns in trying to negotiate a budget deal.

“If I wanted a minimum-wage job, I wouldn’t have gone to school and gotten the training. I would have gotten a job at Subway or some place else,” Smith said.

Representatives of several state employee unions did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Schwarzenegger’s minimum wage order will not affect all of California’s 250,000 government employees. The 37,000 state workers represented by unions that recently negotiated new contracts with the administration will continue to receive their full pay. The contracts, including one with California Highway Patrol officers, contain pay cuts and pension reforms.

Salaried managers who are not paid on an hourly basis would see their pay cut to $455 a week. Doctors and lawyers who work for the state will not be paid at all until a budget is signed because minimum wage laws do not apply to those professions.

Schwarzenegger is pushing for minimum wage based on a 2003 California Supreme Court ruling. In White vs. Davis, the court held that state employees do not have the right to their full salaries if a state budget has not been enacted. At the same time, the state cannot ignore federal wage laws.

The governor issued a similar order during a budget impasse two years ago, but it never took effect because Chiang refused to go along with it. That refusal prompted Schwarzenegger to sue the controller, leading to Friday’s ruling.

It was not immediately clear whether Chiang will appeal the latest ruling to the California Supreme Court.

Chiang has maintained that the minimum wage order is illegal, even in the face of court decisions indicating the opposite.

He has taken in more than $190,000 in campaign contributions from labor groups representing state employees and other unionized workers so far in his 2010 re-election bid. Those donations accounted for about 22 percent of all his contributions, according to campaign reports through May 22.

Chiang also has said California’s computerized payroll system cannot handle the change, specifically because it cannot cut some checks at full pay and others at minimum wage.

He said his office is working on a system upgrade that will be ready in 2012.

The agreement, which will be voted on by members, resulted from CWA’s year-long campaign that raised concerns about Frontier’s purchase of Verizon’s landline operations in West Virginia and 13 other states. “We are comfortable with the deal, given the guarantees that we have negotiated,” CWA District 2 vice president Ron Collins said.

The guarantees include $310 million for broadband and other projects in the state. CWA wanted to ensure that West Virginia residents and anchor institutions can get access to high speed broadband and other innovations, as well as consistent service quality.

The agreement also calls for the company to add 150 CWA jobs by October and maintain at least 1,600 full-time CWA jobs through the end of the contract term, Aug. 2, 2013. Wages will increase by 2.75 percent in August 2011 and 2.5 percent one year later and there will be no health care cost shifting. Other improvements include an upgraded title for service technicians and a guarantee that customer service calls in West Virginia will be routed to CWA call centers in the state.

CWA members will begin voting on the agreement next week, with ballots due July 14.

CWA President Larry Cohen and other leaders sent a letter to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Rep. Henry Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, stating that such legislation would make it clear the FCC has authority to protect free speech on the Internet and to foster universal, affordable high-speed networks. Action is particularly needed because of a recent appellate court ruling limiting FCC’s jurisdiction.

That ruling, issued by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Comcast case, has put into question the FCC’s legal authority to protect an open Internet and accelerate broadband deployment and adoption. CWA and our allies are urging Congress to quickly resolve this question because any other path would lead to years of litigation and regulatory uncertainty that will reduce broadband investment and industry jobs.

The U.S. lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to 21st century communications. Access to high speed broadband is essential to the economic success of all of our communities. America has fallen to 15th in the world in high-speed internet penetration and 28th in global speed comparisons. What that means is that it is harder for communities to spur economic growth, create jobs and bridge the digital divide. Today, most U.S. broadband networks can’t deliver the speeds necessary to run advanced applications and services that can support sustainable communities and enable cost-effective improvements in education, energy, health, and public services.

The letter delivered to Congress last week was signed by Cohen, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and by leaders of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, League of United Latin American Citizens, Minority Media and Telecom Council, NAACP, National Urban League and the Sierra Club.

“We don’t want to go backward or push further into the future the time when the digital divide is finally closed,” the letter states. “We cannot afford inaction which will slow the closing of the digital divide by shifting costs to the poor and discouraging deployment to low income and other disadvantaged Americans.”

Smoke was seen pouring out of a Verizon building in Palm Springs Tuesday morning.

A KPSP Local 2 News Crew on scene reported seeing thick, black smoke billowing out of the building, located at Sunrise and Amado. As of 8:00 a.m., the fire was out.

A witness told KPSP a generator caught fire in the basement of the complex. We’re told everyone made it out of the building safely. The Palm Springs Fire Department reports that the fire was most likely electrical.

Firefighters had to climb on top of the roof with chainsaws to check for structural damage or weakened roof. There were approximately four Palm Springs Fire engines on the scene, along with one battalion chief. There was also one Palm Springs Police officer directing traffic.

“Weingarten rights” derive from a 1975 Supreme Court case, NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. Essentially, they are the right to request assistance from union representatives during investigatory interviews, so that a steward may prevent management from coercing an employee into confessions of misconduct (either through threatening behavior, or simply through skilled interrogation techniques). The union steward can:

• serve as a witness to the actual content of the investigation;
• object to intimidating tactics or confusing questions;
• help an employee avoid making “fatal admissions;”
• advise an employee, when appropriate, against denying everything, and thereby giving the appearance of guilt or dishonesty;
• counsel an employee against losing her/his temper;
• discourage an employee from informing on others;
• raise extenuating factors.

Weingarten rights apply only in investigatory interviews — that is, when management questions an employee to obtain information; and the employee has a reasonable belief that discipline (or other negative consequences) may result. If an employee is called in to a supervisor’s office merely to be informed of a disciplinary decision, the courts have found that this is not an investigatory meeting. The decision to discipline the employee has already been made. However, if the supervisor asks additional questions about the employee’s conduct, the meeting becomes an investigatory interview.

SAMPLE REQUEST FOR REPRESENTATION:

“If this discussion could in anyway lead to my being disciplined or terminated, or affect my personal working conditions, I request that my union representative be present at this meeting. Until my representative arrives, I choose not to participate in this discussion.”

The employee may request union representation before, or at any time during, the interview. At that point, the employer must either grant the request and delay questioning until the steward arrives; deny the request and end the interview immediately; or give the employee the choice of having the interview without representation or ending it immediately. If the employer denies the request for union representation and continues the meeting, the employee has the legal right to refuse to answer questions. However, it is a good idea to phrase the refusal in such a way that it can not be interpreted as insubordination; for example, by saying that you are willing to write down their questions and respond once you’ve spoken to a union representative. Employers sometimes assert that the steward’s only function in these meetings is to observe the discussion (a “silent witness”), but this is not the case. The steward is also allowed to advise and assist the employee in presenting the facts. Once the steward arrives:

• The employer must inform the steward of the subject of the interview (the type of misconduct being investigated);
• The steward must be allowed to meet privately with the employee before questioning begins;
• The steward may speak during the interview, but cannot insist that the interview be ended;
• The steward may object to confusing questions and request for clarification (so that the employee understands what s/he is being asked);
• The steward may advise the employee not to answer questions that are abusive, misleading, or harassing;
• When the questioning ends, the steward can provide information to justify the employee’s conduct.

Most union activists know that employees have the right to union representation during an investigatory interview, but . . .

Question: Where does the right come from?

Answer: In the landmark Weingarten case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a union-represented employee has the right to representation during an interview with management if he or she reasonably believes that disciplinary action will result. Although the right to union representation usually arises during an “investigatory interview,” such an official setting is not required. Any conversation with management during which the employee is questioned and reasonably believes the questioning could lead to discipline triggers the right to union representation. (Note: Weingarten rights apply to private sector employees only. Unionized public sector employees usually enjoy similar rights but those are established by state law or collective bargaining).

Know your labor law Weingarten rights – Use them or lose them!

By Att. Gay Semel

DO NOT SURPLUS YOUR JOB AWAY.

Find other means of taking time off IF you really need it. Think of your fellow Brother and Sister. More importantly think of your Families.

If you are aware of contractors in your area please report that information to the Local ASAP.