Tuesday, August 23, 2011

CWA & IBEW Return to Work....Lets Keep Up the Pressure

Striking CWA And IBEW Workers Return To Work At Verizon

Maintaining Unity As They Seek New Contracts


By Doug Cunningham

Workers Independent News

[Danny Gutierrez]: "The battle continues and we will stay united until we get a fair contract. I want to thank all of my union brothers and sisters, both from land line and the wireless side, for their support in this fight. This is a true David and Goliath story being played out right now. Daid will once again win."

CWA Local 1101's Danny Gutierrez on the Verizon strike ending today. Striking Verizon workers return to work today under indefinite extensions of their existing collective bargaining agreements. Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen says the unity striking CWA and IBEW workers demonstrated in their two-week strike will continue along with continued union mobilization until a new collective bargaining agreement is won at Verizon.

[Cohen]: "That will go on. Not only until we have a decent contract but until working people feel like they can join a union - any union - and bargain with their head held high across this country. We should return united as much as we can, marching in together - literally - at the start of a shift. For now our unity will be to support the bargaining team and to show it. But if that process doesn't work in the weeks ahead, management absolutely knows that that unity will again be directed at them."

Cohen says the unions and working Americans everywhere need to build a new democracy movement to battle corporate power's assault on the middle class. Myles Calvey is IBEW Local 2222 Business Manager.

[Calvey]: "In good faith we've decided to have our members go back and see if we can least change the process. The process up to this point has been a hundred percent concessionary. And as we've explained to the company, even if we were crazy enough to come to a tentative agreement it would never be accepted by the membership, so it was a complete waste of time."
Read more HERE

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