Mobilization
Attention All Active and
Retired Members of 4603
If you haven’t heard AT&T is at it again - they recently announced their intention to surplus 118 more members of our Local. This is on top of work completing 50 RLT’s (working on the U-Verse build) on August 29th, and 9 more by the end of the month.
We must get our Legislators involved in the fight to save these jobs and to hold AT&T accountable for the commitments it made to the Legislators when they were lobbying for passage of the Statewide Video Franchising Act last fall.
There are 2 ways in which to do this. Either use regular mail to send a copy of the letter to your Assemblyperson and Senator along with Governor Jim Doyle, or scroll down this page to find copies of the letters to cut and paste into e-mail’s to your representatives.
If you do not know who your representatives are simply go
to http://waml.legis.state.wi.us/
and enter your information or call the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-362-9472.
Participation by
CWA Local 4603 Mobilization Committee, Rich Pearson, Chair
CWA Local 4603 Legislative Committee, Joy Roberts, Chair
Dear Senator/Representative ( insert name of your Senator and Representative):
As an employee of AT&T and a member of the
Communications Workers of America, Local 4603, in
The truth of the matter is now that the bill has been
signed into law the infrastructure development has been phased back
dramatically. The promised
employment to help build the infrastructure has come in the form of Term
Employees, not regular full time employees.
AT&T has already informed the
All of the jobs generated by the UVerse product have been
Regular Limited Term jobs with no guarantees that they will continue past
Now, to add insult to injury, AT&T has announced the intention to lay off another 118 workers covered under the traditional contract. In the Greater Milwaukee area alone this is about 5% of the membership of the Communications Workers of America, Local 4603. Add in the Term Employees that have been let go or will be let go by the end of the year and the percentage jumps to almost 10%.
This has been a continuing trend. Since the late 1990’s Milwaukee has suffered through two major business office and several smaller office closings, resulting in a loss of over 1,000 jobs.
The truth of the matter is that since Governor Doyle signed
the Bill into law AT&T has reduced infrastructure investment, reduced
employment levels and refused to guarantee that any of the other jobs created
after the passage of the bill will remain in
I respectfully request that you call Scott VanderSanden (president of AT&T Wisconsin) at 414-270-5900 and Randall Stephenson (CEO of AT&T) at 210-351-5401 and demand that they live up to the promises they made while lobbying for the passage of the Statewide Video Franchising Act.
Sincerely,
Letter to the Governor
Dear Governor Doyle:
As an employee of AT&T and a member of the
Communications Workers of America, Local 4603, in
The truth of the matter is now that the bill has been
signed into law the infrastructure development has been phased back
dramatically. The promised
employment to help build the infrastructure has come in the form of Term
Employees, not regular full time employees.
AT&T has already informed the
All of the jobs generated by the UVerse product have been
Regular Limited Term jobs with no guarantees that they will continue past
Now, to add insult to injury, AT&T has announced the intention to lay off another 118 workers covered under the traditional contract. In the Greater Milwaukee area alone this is about 5% of the membership of the Communications Workers of America, Local 4603. Add in the Term Employees that have been let go or will be let go by the end of the year and the percentage jumps to almost 10%.
This has been a continuing trend. Since the late 1990’s Milwaukee has suffered through two major business office and several smaller office closings, resulting in a loss of over 1,000 jobs.
The truth of the matter is that since Governor Doyle signed
the Bill into law AT&T has reduced infrastructure investment, reduced
employment levels and refused to guarantee that any of the other jobs created
after the passage of the bill will remain in
I respectfully request that you call Scott VanderSanden (president of AT&T Wisconsin) at 414-270-5900 and Randall Stephenson (CEO of AT&T) at 210-351-5401 and demand that they live up to the promises they made while lobbying for the passage of the Statewide Video Franchising Act.
Sincerely,
--
The
Stewards Army
The CWA
'Stewards Army' – What Is It?
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One of the key initiatives in
CWA's Ready for the Future program is the creation of a volunteer "Stewards
Army" of rank-and-file activists to mobilize for positive change, both
within our industries and in American society.
The initial goal is to recruit
25,000 activists into the Stewards Army by July 2007, and then build our ranks
to 50,000 by 2009. CWA is developing a special education and training
program for members who sign up.
Those who join won't all be shop
stewards in the traditional sense of handling grievances and enforcing contracts
at the job site – a critically important job that is done by thousands of CWA
stewards in countless locations.
The Stewards Army is really
about "stewardship" in a broader sense: stewardship to
strengthen workers' bargaining and organizing rights and advocate for our other
major goals – jobs, health care, and retirement security.
The goal is to join CWA's 50,000
with another 500,000 or more activists from other major unions to create a
powerful force to change the priorities of the country and refocus on an agenda
for working families.
The Stewards Army will include
both active union members and retirees. Its action program will sometimes
be directed at a CWA employer or workplace, and other times will be more broadly
focused on a CWA industry goal or even a national issue such as health care.
Actions can range from sending an e-mail message to participating in rallies,
meeting with elected officials and mobilizing thousands for mass action.
We need to reorient
________________________________________________________________________________
Your
union needs your input. As a
democratic union, what members think is extremely important, but what members
do can be even more important!
Between
now and the time our contract expires, a lot of work needs to be done to put us
in the strongest bargaining position possible. Seeing what’s on the horizon
for workers means we’ll need every ounce of strength we can muster.
For
starters, we need you to fill out this form completely.
Be honest with yourself about your time commitment, but for you and your
family’s future, make the greatest commitment possible.
Your Name________________________________ Home Phone___________________________
WorkLocation___________________________Email_________________________________________
(Your
e-mail will only be used for the most urgent mobilization alerts.)
I’ll
do my part to gain the best contract possible.
I will (check all that apply):
____
Wear union shirts, buttons, stickers, etc.
____
Handout flyers to co-workers.
____
Distribute and collect Bargaining Surveys within my work group.
____
Circulate petitions in the community, my church, etc.
____
Meet with community organizations about bargaining.
____
Discuss bargaining issues with my minister, priest, rabbi, etc.
____
Attend informational pickets
____
Deliver materials to workers at other locations.
____
Serve on the Local’s Mobilization Committee.
____
Explain the benefits of a union to my friends and neighbors.
____ Provide the my union with the names and phone
numbers of non- union friends.
____ Help my union organizers with leafleting.
____ Assist the local organizers with home visits.
____ Serve on the Local’s organizing Committee.
Home Phone:________________________ Home Phone:____________________________
Workplace___________________________
Workplace______________________________
Job_________________________________
Job____________________________________
Person & the Local’s organizer.
& the Local’s organizer.
____ Contact the above person & ____ Contact the above person
talk about
the
A PowerTool for Working Families!
For
more info call CWA Local 4603 at 414-258-4010