My Notes From The CWA T&T Conference

February 4, 2020

Brothers and Sisters,

On Sunday January 26th through Tuesday January 28th, 2020 I attended the CWA Telecommunications and Technologies (CWA T&T) Conference in Orlando Florida.  The conference began on Sunday with ‘brake out’ meetings with the different bargaining units that the CWA T&T represents.  For our local there were two ‘brake out’ meetings that I attended.

The first meeting was with Nokia/OFS/Sodexo delegates and the Staff Representatives Ruth Marriot, Luis Benitez-Burgos, and Mary Jo Reilly, the Assistant to the Vice President, Ken Saether, and the Vice President, Lisa Bolton.  For those of you that are not aware OFS is Optical Fiber Solutions, which is formerly the fiber optic manufacturing plant that was a ‘spin off’ from Lucent Technologies, and Sodexo is a company that is contracted out and runs “Bell Labs” for Nokia.  In this meeting the delegates were informed of broad overview of the current contracts being negotiated, future contract negotiations, ongoing grievances and arbitrations as well as general concerns with the three (Nokia/OFS/Sodexo) companies.  Some key points for OFS is that manufacturing has slowed down due to tariffs and some lay offs may occur, and the US market has been flooded with inferior fiber. A key point for Sodexo is that Nokia is going to put the contract up for bid for the running and maintaining the “Bell Labs”, this could have a possible impact on the bargained for work at “Bell Labs”.  For us ‘Nokia’ the company has not fulfilled the settlements from the NLRB Charges regarding to data request for the actual costs of the third-party contractors.  There are several grievances that the NLRB has ruled that the company will have to arbitrate even though we are working ‘status quo’ on an expired contract.  Also because Andy Wambach retired we are to refer to Mary Jo Reilly for any issues in regards to company provided benefits (please refer to article on Andy Wambach’s retirement . And the next bargaining meeting will be February 11th with the company.

The second meeting was with the Installation Bargaining Units Council and the bargaining team from the CWA T&T Office Luis Benitez-Burgos, and Mary Jo Reilly.  For those of you that are not aware the Installation Bargaining Units Council is the Officers from all the installation locals listed in our CWA Installation Contract 25 Article One.  Please note that after the Alcatel-Lucent Shift plan only twelve of the twenty locals remain and are as follows; 1090, 1190, 1290, 2390, 4050/4090, 4390, 6290, 6390, 6391, 7090, 7590, and 13590.  Here a several key points from this meeting;

1)      The election of the Installation Bargaining Units Council E-Board (President, VP, and Secretary/Treasurer) shall be postponed until after bargaining.  Steve Amato will remain President, Jason Grabill will remain Vice President, and Rosa Holguin-Sufak will remain Secretary/Treasurer.  Please also note that there will not changes to our bargaining team as well.

2)      Indexes (Skill Level Promotions), per the contract the company will announce the installers that are being promoted to the next skill level.  The time for installers to get with their ROM’s to build a business case for promotion was October/November of 2019.  It was reported by one of the locals that installer requested some weekly copies of the ISTAR Time Tickets and discovered some code changes that hindered the business case.

3)      End of Shift and Daily/Weekly Time reporting, it was reported by one of the locals that rROM’s in India were requesting installers to report their time daily to the rROM and Jim Hughes, Nokia, as well as to send in their weekly time ticket.  There was a lot of discussion about this issue however the bottom line is that our Contract is very vague on time reporting, and because of this and per past NLRB Rulings this would not constitute a change in our working conditions.  So, if the company is making this a job assignment we will have to comply.  With this said be sure that the time you report for the day matches your weekly time ticket worksheet.

4)      Grievances and Arbitration, the CWA T&T Office currently has two grievances that are going to arbitration.  One grievance is for the company short timing and not negotiating the terms and conditions of this short timing with the local involved.  The other grievance is for the company creating false surplus conditions and declaring a surplus and offering the ESVTP last March.  Also, locals were encouraged to file grievances for the installation of Jumara Boxes.

5)      The bargaining team is anticipating the company to create false surplus conditions again so they can again offer the ESVTP. Locals are being advised to stay vigilant and watch for installers being “benched”.

6)      Mobilization Activities – Requesting Copies of your ISTAR Time Tickets.  The bargaining team and local officers from all the locals are highly encouraging all our bargained for employees (all the members and non-members) to request a copy of their ISTAR Time Ticket on a weekly basis.  This is your right to do so, also this can help ensure that the work operation codes and orders you are charging on your time ticket worksheet match ISTAR Time Ticket.  This can be helpful when time comes for a skill level promotion, and it can help identify if the company is changing time charged to active orders to an indirect labor code to build the case for surplus conditions.  Also, if they are going to ask for a daily time/end of shift report and weekly time ticket then we should ask for a copy of our ISTAR Time Ticket. More mobilization activities will be announced in the coming weeks.

On Monday January 27th the CWA T&T Conference continued with the General Session in the morning.  We had two key note speakers; Chris Shelton, CWA President and Cecil Roberts, labor unionist and President of the United Mine Workers of America.  Chris Shelton spoke of how the “PRO ACT” can help the union, and Cecil Roberts spoke of the struggles of the unions in the past and is aware of our fight for a fair contract with Nokia and has offered the support of the UMWA.  Monday afternoon we attended two of our three assigned workshops and training.  On Tuesday January 28th we continued with more workshops/training in the morning. Then on Tuesday afternoon we concluded the General Session with a speech from Lisa Bolton, CWA T&T Vice President, a tribute to Morty Bahr, and good and welfare.  Please also see the CWA T&T website at https://cwa-union.org/teletech for more information on the CWA T&T Conference.

In Unity,

R.K. Ferdinandsen

President

CWA Local 7590