WHAT THE PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WILL HURT THEM
The next Membership Meeting will be held:
Tuesday, August 6th, 2024
7:00 P.M.
CWA Local 3871 Office
5074 Bluff City Hwy, Bluff City TN 37618
Email: president@unionforever3871.com
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To: All CWA Members
From: Samantha Luna, Local President
Membership Meeting Highlights for July 2024
Samantha called the meeting to order.
Pledge of allegiance was recited.
A moment of silence was observed. Samantha shared the passing of Larry Gobbles wife.
Sergent-at-arms- assigned (members name on file in minutes)
Finance- Tim Mullady provided a financial report and announced the Local was in the Black.
New Members- Seven new members were voted on and approved. Five from a new hire class with AT&T and two with Brightspeed.
By Laws- Samantha has sent another follow-up email to the district to ask if we have received final approval on the changes to our By Laws. She is still waiting for a response.
NLRB- Samantha shared she still has two charges open at the NLRB. One for a job termination grievance with Brightspeed and one for an AT&T grievance over seniority. Samantha shared that during the convention in DC, National did speak on the delays with the NLRB. Apparently, they are having to hold a lot of new elections for new bargaining units which is taking agents off their cases to go hold the elections.
Convention-Megan and Samantha recently attended the President’s meeting and Legislative Convention in DC. Some of the hot topics were as follows: The Union feels the use of AI is infringing on Human rights]. The CWA Committee on Artificial Intelligence has already presented principles and recommendations on how to address the challenges that AI presents through both bargaining strategy and public policy. n our continued efforts, we will be creating an Action Network campaign in the fall of 2024 to have CWA members sign on and petition to re-introduce the Facial Recognition & Biometric Technology Moratorium. This bill seeks to make it unlawful for any federal agency or official to “acquire, possess, access or use facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technology by federal law enforcement agencies.” It would also prohibit the use of federal funds to purchase such technology. “Facial recognition technology doesn’t just pose a grave threat to our privacy, it physically endangers Black Americans and other minority populations in our country,” U.S. Senator Ed Markey said in a statement. “As we work to dismantle the systematic racism that permeates every part of our society, we can’t ignore the harms that these technologies present." Health Disparities in the African American Community Specifically, we are disseminating information about diseases that were highlighted in our 2023 report. African Americans continue to experience significant health and healthcare disparities, leading to higher rates of illness and premature death compared to other racial groups. In response to this issue since our 79th CWA Convention, we have been providing information on the leading causes of death in the African American community, such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, prostate cancer, and breast cancer. We aim to raise awareness in various forms and promote education to help address these health disparities and improve the overall health of our community. Megan shared about getting to see politicians. Megan shared that the National is extremely focused on the Tax Fairness ACT, no tax breaks for union busting companies, and no tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs.
Alliance Mobile- Alliance is still currently in the middle of bargaining. A meeting with our members to provide updates and gain feedback is set for tomorrow July 10th at 8:15 pm. We are also trying to bring the three stores together for a meet and greet soon. A member out of Morristown is trying to get this set up with Samantha. Samantha is also working with two new potential locations as well.
Holston- The Unions organizing chair and EVP will be visiting to the nursing home on 7/12/2024. The Local still does not have a Steward or Area rep for this bargaining unit.
AT&T- A grievance meeting is set for tomorrow for the call center. Samantha has recently asked for an update on the separate MU grievance from the district. There have been no changes to this grievance since the last meeting. Megan recently attended District WRC. Samantha turned the floor over to Megan Mitnaul to share what happened in the District WRC meeting. Megan shared the following: System issues: The Union discussed problems with the payment systems being difficult when taking payments when masking is not working and issues with the new system as a whole. The company stated they are continuing to work on these specific issues. The company noted that the problems with the payment systems have become less frequent based on what is being submitted to internal troubleshooting team. For the new system the Company stated that they are aware of the problems and tickets are being worked on constantly and are hoping the more we report the troubles we are seeing the faster things can be fixed. Call Outs: Most agents are being asked to call their manager for any same-day changes to their schedule. For example: Etime, vacation, life happens, exchange time. Since our managers get notified via email of these changes it is creating extra work for both managers and reps to have to call in to speak to a manager. The Union explained that per the attendance policy, we are only required to be in contact with a manager for changes if it is attendance impacting. The Company agreed that we didn't need to continue to do this and they would notify their managers that it is no longer going to be asked of us. Keep in mind you will still need to call if you are going on short-term, submitting for an unexcused absence, or bereavement time. 15-minute huddle time at the start of the shift: We learned that collections is currently the only organization that does not get 15 minutes at the start of our shift to pull up systems, read emails, or read CCKM. The company emphatically denied giving this time to collections. The Company stated that the collection's organization is being looked to as an example of being efficient and this time will soon be removed for other organizations (Samantha explained that other departments were mirroring this time given to reps in the COR contracts and that’s why it was being given to them). The Company also explained that sales for example is given that time to meet with their team to discuss daily sales goals and we as collections should be getting pulled by our managers if anything crucially important has changed before we take calls because it is rare something comes up for us that we don’t know about in advance. ISM: The Union asked why we are continuing to periodically take ISM calls in general and also pointed out the pattern of being told we are not taking them, then told we take them for overflow and then when Union pushes on when these calls will go away then the calls stop and we don’t take them anymore. The Union specifically asked when this will move to a temporary job assignment because of this pattern and when will the Company train other reps to take these calls. The Union explained it’s not fair to a tenured rep to be taking back-to-back calls all day while their newly hired neighbor is on mobility only with time between calls. The Union asked to either take them away completely or train all reps to take them. The Union wanted to explain how the situation with the data breach came about. The reps that are responsible for taking these calls were 178% over the projected call volume when the data breach occurred. Johnson City, Orlando, as well as a mobility customer service call center, had reps that were dual-skilled and had reps available to field these calls. The Company asked if Collections reps could help out and we did. The Company advised that they hope to have all of our reps dual-skilled around the 4th quarter of this year if it is projected that we are going to be taking them again. The Companys goal for the future is for each department to be able to take calls for all products in their skillset. For example: Collections will take collections calls for all types of AT&T services, Customer service will handle customer service for all AT&T products etc. That again is a future goal for the whole company. The Union will hold the Company accountable for their promises of getting all reps trained for dual-skilled calls.
Brightspeed- The Local gives its deepest condolences to Larry Gobble who has recently lost his wife. A card will be sent today with the Locals deepest sympathy. Since July is considered veteran appreciation month the district asked for names of our members who have served in any branch of the Military. Samantha shared she had posted this on the Locals FB page and sent emails to all Brightspeed members asking for this information. She only received one communication back from Mike Transki who will receive recognition from the district. Open discussion was had about the RFM temporary assignment concern. Samantha had previously explained this could be considered a unilateral change and she may be able to ask to bargain this job, but only has 6 months to file the request with the Company and/or submit a charge with NLRB if denied. Brightspeeds AVP shared he had a copy of current job descriptions. After reviewing those and having an open discussion with the members present, it was discovered that the RFM role is listed in the CST job description. Samantha explained since the job description specifically lists RFM and the work being done is listed under CST duties this would NOT be considered a unilateral change and she believes there to be no grievance. An open discussion was had with the Brightspeed members to see if there was any other way to address the issue and all agreed there is no current contractual language or past practice that will allow them to continue to pursue the issue. This will now be considered a closed item. There has been a misdistribution declared in Kingsport. After speaking with Brightspeed’s Staff rep and Brightspeed Local AVP and reviewing the contract there has been no violation of the current CBA. Bumping rights will not apply since this is not a surplus. It came to Samantha’s attention today that employees in Kingsport have been denied overtime pay. Samantha and the Local AVP for Brightspeed have agreed to wait until pay day on 7/12/2024 to send an email to the Company’s Labor department about this issue. This is to allow for clarification of whose issues have and have not been resolved as of pay day.
The floor was opened for any additional items. None were presented.
Meeting adjourned at 8:03 PM EST.