This is to inform you that the application process for the CWA Joe Beirne Foundation?s scholarship for the 2020-2021 school year begins.

The Foundation?s Board of Directors has approved the awarding of sixteen (16) partial college scholarships of $4,000 each for two years. Eligible for the scholarships are CWA members, their spouses, children, and grandchildren, including the dependents of retired, laid-off, or deceased members.
Applications will be available solely online for submission on the Foundation?s website at http://cwa-union.org/beirne-application.

This valuable scholarship program is made possible by the funding of CWA locals.

Beginning September 1, 2019, the new Paid Parental Leave policy will become effective for the Midwest bargaining unit. If anyone has a birth/adoption on or after this effective date, they will be eligible to participate in the program.

It is my understanding that our members will be notified of the effective date this Thursday. Additionally, an HR OneStop alert containing more details will be sent out next week.

Summary of Tentative Agreement (TA)

If an article is not mentioned in this summary that would indicate no substantive changes were made and the article was carried forward, keeping in mind date changes were made where applicable.

Over the last year and a half, the Bargaining Committee was continually faced with regressive proposals from the Company. From the beginning, your Bargaining Team fought for what we felt was right and were able to overcome many of those regressive Company proposals.

The Company essentially attacked each Article in the contract. We had to fight to maintain the current language and they attacked key elements of the agreement, such as:
 Eliminate Card Check and Neutrality
 Reducing the Watermark to 1630
 Article 43 watermark to 530
 Increasing all health care contributions to 32%
 No rolling in of the 2015 new hires

These are just a few examples of the regressive proposals that the Bargaining Team fought off.

The Bargaining team is currently working on a detailed summary for the contract explanation meeting for Local Presidents, which will be held on Tuesday, July 9th. The detailed information will then be shared with membership.
The following is a short summary of some highlights from the tentative agreement.

So, you've slugged away at your job for a few years and your role and responsibilities haven't changed. No one seeks your input and most important meetings and work happen around you without you being involved. Where and how do you kick your career back in gear?

Let's get one thing straight...

Employers and Corporations did not feel generous and decide to give you two days off every week to have a social/personal life. (We now call them weekends). Corporations did not just feel like being nice one day and give their employees paid vacations. CEOs didn't get together in a board room and say "Let's give our employees more rights at work" or "Maybe there should be laws to limit our power over an employee".

Brothers Charles and David Koch, with a combined worth around $35 billion dollars, are waging a war against President Obama.

The Koch brothers are the majority owners in Koch Industries, America 's second-largest private company with revenues of $100 billion in 2009, and 80,000 employees in 60 countries.

Under the Supreme Court's Weingarten decision, when a investigatory interview occurs, these rules apply:

The employee may request union representation before or during the interview. After the request, the employer must choose from among three options:

1.Grant the request and delay questioning until the union representative arrives.

2. Deny the request and end the interview immediately.