CWA Telecommunications Vice President Jimmy Gurganus issued this response to an e-mail bulletin sent to Sprint employees by the company's local division chief operating officer, Mike Fuller.
Gurganus makes it clear that Fuller failed to tell the full truth about the strike, and clearly failed to tell the full truth about Sprint's demands. Gurganus' message below sets the record straight.
Dear Sprint Employees:
You recently received an e-mail from Mike Fuller, Sprint's Local Division Chief Operating Officer, concerning the strike against Sprint in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana. Fuller failed to tell the full truth about the strike. Further, he failed to tell the truth about Sprint's bargaining proposals. I will correct the record so that everyone knows the reasons for the strike and the truth about Sprint's proposals.
The strike is a direct result of demands made by Sprint for concessions – IT IS NOT ABOUT DEMANDS MADE BY CWA.
Sprint's Proposals:
Sprint's proposal on the 401(k) matching contribution proposes to change the company-match which is a guaranteed 50% match and provides for an additional match based on company performance. Sprint's proposal removes the guaranteed match and gives the company the right, at their discretion, to match or not match 401(k) contributions.
Sprint's proposal on sickness disability slashes the maximum amount of disability payments from a maximum of 52 fully paid weeks to a maximum of 26 fully paid weeks. It changes all vacation and personal holidays to Paid Time Off (PTO) days. It does grant an additional three (3) days. Sprint also requires an employee who is sick to use PTO days to cover all days out sick before their sickness is covered by the sickness disability plan. Coverage begins after the employee is absent for five (5) consecutive days because of illness. This means an employee who is absent on multiple occasions could use up the additional three (3) PTO days and their existing personal holidays and portions of their existing vacation to cover sick absences.
Currently, the sickness disability plan requires an employee who returns to work from disability to work 13 weeks to restore full benefits. Sprint's proposal would double the 13 weeks to 26 weeks to restore full benefits. I believe cutting in half the maximum paid sickness benefit, eliminating pay for the first five (5) days of sickness and doubling the number of weeks required to restore benefits is in fact "slashing" disability benefits.
Sprint's proposal on healthcare benefits is to remove any caps on the amount of premium dollars an employee would have to pay to have healthcare. Currently, Sprint has the ability to change their Flexcare benefit plans any way they desire including changing plan design and plan administration. This proposal would give Sprint the ability to transfer any portion of the cost of the plan to the employee, up to 100% of the cost. All of us know about the increases in healthcare costs, but giving the Company the ability, if they choose to exercise it, to transfer the entire cost of employee healthcare onto the employee isn't the right answer. We need more than "trust me – we will do the right thing".
The proposal on Sunday pay would change the current pay for work on scheduled Sundays from time and one-half to straight time. An employee could receive overtime for working more than eight hours on Sunday or they could use the time worked on Sunday to compute overtime when they work a sixth day. The fact is employees would lose premium pay for work performed on Sunday, not because it is overtime, but because it is Sunday. The contracts require premium pay for work on Sunday. The argument advanced is that the Company needs to work employees on Sunday to compete with the cable companies. There are no previsions in the contracts that would prevent the Company from working as many people as needed on Sunday. They simply want to work employees on the cheap scale.
The proposal on job bidding advanced by Sprint would significantly dilute seniority rights and would give Sprint the additional ability to disregard the rights of its employees to advance within the Company.
I realize Mike Fuller is trying to put the best face on Sprint's bargaining proposals, but in order to do so, he shouldn't need to resort to distorting the truth. The Company justifies its proposals in two ways – first by saying that CWA has already agreed to these changes and that these changes are present in 20 labor agreements. The second reason is that the Company is making these changes because they have imposed them on their management and non-represented employees. First, of the 20 labor agreements that have some of these proposals, 15 are held by the IBEW and the five (5) CWA agreements are small, isolated and, in most cases, poorly organized units. They were forced to accept these changes because of the corporate power of Sprint. Second – there is no defense in using the fact that the Company has put these changes in place for their management and non-represented employees because these employees have no recourse but to accept the changes or quit their jobs. Many of the non-represented employees have approached CWA about organizing, but Sprint, so far, has used its corporate power to prevent these employees from exercising their rights to be represented by a Union.
In closing, we are more than willing to return to the bargaining table to bargain an agreement that is fair for the employees, the customers and the Company. We are not prepared to give in to Sprint's corporate greed. In all of Mike Fuller's misrepresentations about Sprint's proposals, he did not say these contract provisions were not similar or the same as those provided by other represented telecommunications companies or that they prevented Sprint from being a very profitable company, which it is.
Jimmy Gurganus
CWA Vice President, Telecommunications
