10/3/07 - Plan for maintaining the State Children's Health Care Plan has passed both the Senate and the House, yet President Bush has expressed plans to veto the bill when it comes to his desk. The flyer below has been put out by the AFL-CIO urging union members to contact their representatives to over ride the veto. The flyer also shows how this is not an immigration issue as it is being portrayed by its opponents.

Go to the AFL-CIO Take Action site to send your Congressional reps a message about children's healthcare. For more information check out the AFL-CIO Health Care site

9/28 - AT&T has asked all of its employees to participate in an email campaign that is aimed at keeping Internet Access tax free. Forecasts indicate that if Congress institutes a tax on internet access, the cost of access could increase by $85 or more per year. AT&T has asked that all its members go to the political action website and email their representatives. CWA also supports upholding the moratorium on Internet taxes, but because of the way AT&T is attacking the health care and pension benefits of its members at Video Services and Internet Services, CWA District 6 has asked that the following language be included in the email.

I also want you to know that we have AT&T workers who have been working without a Union contract at AT&T Video Services for over a month now. I am also asking you to get involved with this issue by contacting AT&T's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Randall Stephenson, at 210-351-2200 and asking him to resolve any outstanding issues. I appreciate you attention to these matters.

To take action on this, go to http://ga3.org/campaign/dtow_att and cut and paste the above paragraph into the end of the letter.

9/28 - CWA International has not put its endorsement behind any of the candidates for president. It has begun an online poll, to gauge the views of its members in this all important eletion. Click on the flier below to be taken to the site,

8/20/07 - Democratic presidential candidates say unions are vital to the middle class economy:

Democrats Preach Virtue of Labor Unions
By RON FOURNIER 08.19.07, 12:25 AM ET

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -

Democratic presidential candidates argued Saturday night that organized labor is an essential part of the nation's economy whose troubles mirror the deterioration of the middle class way of life. (more...)

8/16/07 - Health Care is becoming one of the major political issues of the upcoming election:

In 2005, nearly 45 million U.S. residents had no health insurance, and the numbers keep growing.Because employers increasingly are moving in the direction of providing Wal-Mart-style health coverage by shifting health care costs to employees, America’s workers struggle to pay higher premiums, deductibles and co-payments—if they can afford such coverage at all. (more...)

8/16/07 - News from the campaign trail

Six Democratic candidates turned their rhetorical guns on China at an Iowa Federation of Labor forum Wednesday in Waterloo. Citing the recent recalls of millions of toys made in China, the candidates accused that country of unfair trade practices, currency manipulation and low production standards. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) slammed China as an “adversary,” (more...)

12/12/06 - Press Release from Lloyd Doggett's office regarding the effect of the recent elections:

U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett recently welcomed the announcement that House Democrats plan to work full five-day legislative work week when Congress resumes in January. "After 12 years of Republican control of the House, eight-day work weeks wouldn't be enough to undo all the damage," Doggett said. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also recently announced Doggett's appointment to the steering and policy committee. This group helps determine the committees on which Democratic members serve and helps the new Speaker plan the House agenda. Among other goals, Doggett said Democratic priorities would include "raising the minimum wage, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, increasing student financial assistance, and cleaning up Congress."

12/07/06 - This article from a San Francisco publication helps illustrate the value of COPE contribution and legislatively active union members:

(Posted on Wed, 6 Dec 2006 01:31:07 -0500)

Payback Time for Labor

By Dick Meister submitted to portside by the author December 06, 2006

For more than a decade, Congress has paid little attention to the labor issues that affect millions of Americans. But that will change dramatically when the new Democratically-controlled Congress convenes in January. Organized labor's all-out campaign in behalf of victorious Democratic candidates in the midterm elections this month made that a certainty. It was the most extensive, most expensive ­- and most successful -- such campaign in labor history. It also seems likely to end up as labor's most rewarding. (more...)

12/07/06 - New York Times reports on the Democratic shift in Congress and its plans for American workers.

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

With the Democratic Congress expected to move quickly to raise the minimum wage, many Democrats, women's organizations and liberal groups are gearing up for a fight on another workplace issue: paid sick days.

Supporters point to studies showing that nearly half of American workers do not receive paid sick days. But many Republicans and businesses complain that such legislation would impose another mandate on companies, driving up their costs.

Advocates of paid sick leave cite workers like Naomi Nakamura, who lost a week's pay when her 103-degree fever forced her to miss five days from her job at a video rental store in San Francisco.

Ms. Nakamura said, "Some employees didn't want to lose their pay, so they showed up for work even though they had strep throat, and they just spread it to other people."

Last month, San Francisco voters approved a measure requiring all employers to provide paid sick days, making it the first jurisdiction in the nation with such a requirement. The vote was 61 percent to 39 percent.

Now supporters are planning a big push for sick day legislation not just in Congress, but in Maine, Maryland, Montana and several other states. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a bill last year to require companies with at least 15 employees to provide seven paid sick days a year, but that bill languished in the Republican-led Congress.

Now that Democrats have won control of Congress, Mr. Kennedy, the incoming chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is more optimistic.

"It has a wildfire of support across the country," he said. "When you talk to workers, this is, besides an increase in the minimum wage, the most important issue for these families. This is a families issue. This is a values issue.

" Mr. Kennedy's bill, like a House bill sponsored by Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, would provide a total of seven paid sick days not just when workers are ill, but when members of their families are ill - or need to go to the doctor for checkups and tests.

A big problem with not having paid sick days, Mr. Kennedy said, is that many parents, not wanting to miss work, let their sick children go to school, spreading their illnesses. Mr. Kennedy said his bill would guarantee paid sick days to 66 million who do not now have them.

Business lobbyists plan to fight the effort.

"Supporters of legislation like this complain about unfunded mandates in education when it comes to No Child Left Behind, but they don't hesitate to impose unfunded mandates on employers," said Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce. "The employer community is not going to roll over on this issue."

Susan Eckerly, vice president for federal policy at the National Federation of Independent Business, said, "I could see where this would pass the House, but if you put this on the floor of the Senate, it would be a good candidate for a filibuster."

Mr. Kennedy acknowledged that possibility. "We'll need some of our Republican colleagues," he said.

Advocates plan to build a coalition like the one that won passage of the Families and Medical Leave Act in 1993 after a long struggle - including two vetoes by the first President Bush. The coalition backing paid sick days includes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Acorn, an association of community organizations that helped win passage of a minimum wage increase in six states on Election Day.

"These kinds of policies that create flexibility in the workplace are important to make families be healthy and economically secure," said Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership. "You'd be hard-pressed to talk to a woman today at any point of the economic spectrum who isn't struggling with this issue."

Jody Heymann, a professor of social policy at McGill University, pointed to studies showing that children get well sooner when their parents take time off to care for them. She said the United States was the only industrial nation not to require paid sick days when workers are ill.

"Enough firms do this to show that companies can provide this and compete economically," Professor Heymann said.

But many business owners complain that mandates like paid sick days require lots of paperwork and take a one-size-fits-all approach.

Steve Caughran, owner of a printing shop outside Fresno, Calif., said, "Any time the government is mandating something and creates an extra burden on business, it becomes another regulatory tax and raises costs."

He said that to attract workers most companies needed to provide good benefits, including sick days. He said he offered most employees about 14 paid days off each year, to be taken as vacation or sick days.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research found that 77 percent of workers in the lowest quarter by wages did not have paid sick days, while 43 percent of middle-class workers did not and 31 percent of workers in the top quarter did not.

Leonardo Prado, a restaurant worker in San Francisco, said not having paid sick days was a financial and emotional strain. Mr. Prado, who is divorced, said that last June when his 4-year-old, Antonio, got sick for two days, he had to hire a baby sitter for $10 an hour, even though he earned $8.82 an hour as a waiter, not counting tips.

"It really hurt in the wallet," Mr. Prado said. "You didn't have the option to say: 'I can't work this day. I have to take care of my son.' "

A community group in San Francisco, Young Workers United, sponsored the referendum, after many workers had complained about the issue.

Businesses hardly fought the measure, considering it a lost cause. "San Franciscans have a history of voting their social conscience as long as someone else writes the check," said Kevin Westlye, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which opposed the referendum.

He said consumers would be hurt, predicting that restaurants would raise prices because of the sick days mandate and a mandate for employers to contribute toward health insurance. The higher prices, he said, might cause some restaurants to lose business - and perhaps close.

"There's no such thing as a free lunch on something like this," he said.

11/16/06 CWA President Larry Cohen's reaction to the 2006 elections.

11/16/06 - New York Times article highlights more problems with voting machines in the recent November 06 elections:

November 16, 2006
Editorial: Counting the Vote, Badly

Last week's elections provided a lot of disturbing news about the reliability of electronic voting - starting, naturally, with Florida. In a Congressional race there between Vern Buchanan, a Republican, and Christine Jennings, a Democrat, the machines in Sarasota County reported that more than 18,000 people, or one in eight, did not choose either candidate. That "undervote" of nearly 13 percent is hard to believe, given that only about 2.5 percent of absentee voters did not vote in that race. If there was a glitch, it may have made all the difference. Ms. Jennings trails Mr. Buchanan by about 400 votes.

The serious questions about the Buchanan- Jennings race only add to the high level of mistrust that many people already feel about electronic voting. More than half of the states, including California, New York, Ohio and Illinois, now require that electronic voting machines produce voter-verified paper records, which help ensure that votes are properly recorded. But Congress has resisted all appeals to pass a law that would ensure that electronic voting is honest and accurate across the nation.

Fortunately, that may be about to change. With the Democrats now in control of both houses, there is an excellent chance of passing tough electronic voting legislation. Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, had more than 200 co-sponsors for a strong electronic voting bill before this month's election, and support is likely to grow in the new Congress. In the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who will be chairwoman of the Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees elections, plans to develop a similar bill.

The problems with elections go well beyond electronic voting. Partisan secretaries of state continue to skew the rules to favor their parties and political allies. States are adopting harsh standards for voter registration drives to make it harder for people to register, as well as draconian voter identification laws to make casting a ballot harder for poor people, racial minorities, the elderly and students. Some states have adopted an indefensible rule that provisional ballots cast at the wrong table of the correct polling place must be thrown out.

Congress has failed to address these and other important flaws with the mechanics of the election system. But this, too, may be about to change. Senator Feinstein is saying that providing fair access to the ballot will be among her committee's top priorities in the coming year. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, plans to revise and reintroduce her "Count Every Vote Act," which takes an admirably broad approach to overhauling the voting system.

Election reform has tended to be a partisan issue, with Democrats arguing for reform and Republicans resisting it. It shouldn't be. Congressional Democrats should make fixing this country's broken system of elections a top priority, and Republicans should join them.