I voted a reluctant “Yes” on this contract. I’m sure most CWA members who work for Qwest felt like I do, that you really don’t have much of a choice at this point. Nothing like having a gun put to your head in the form of more layoffs and a tumbling economy. With absolutely no leverage available to union members now, we pretty much have to take the contract offered and be thankful to have a job.

Overall, I can’t shake the anger and displeasure I continue to feel for our so-called union leadership. They blew a golden opportunity to win us a great contract, and for that they should be ashamed. They sold out to the Democratic Party rather than all us hard working, union-dues paying men and women.

Unfortunately what can you do about it? The AFL-CIO threw more than $20 million dollars at some anti-union amendments here in Colorado in order to protect their cash cow, and they won again. Not where I like seeing my dues go, how about some progress on our grievances, working conditions, etc.

I do think this will be the last contract CWA negotiates with Qwest. The latest rumors have Verizon buying Qwest, and I don’t think any of us would be opposed to that. Verizon has much more financial muscle, and some vision for the future with their FiOS service. Not to mention Verizon wireless, which is a monster player in the industry.

Current Qwest CEO Ed Mueller has shown nothing other than a caretaker management approach since he took over. He switched out Sprint with a resale agreement with Verizon Wireless, and has now decided to kill off Qwest’s limited TV offering, Choice TV in favor of a resale agreement with Direct TV. He has done nothing other than indicate he is trying to keep this ship afloat for someone else to take over.

So we take our 3% raise, and our increased health care premiums.  Thanks CWA and Qwest, you’ve both managed to piss us off.

How about you? Was enough done to change your no vote to a yes? The agreement is listed below if you haven’t had a chance to review it.

Post your comments below…

CWA-Qwest Tentative Agreement

No significant details have been released, other than the fact that it will be a 4-year deal with 3% raises each year.  That was a slight improvement over the 3 year deal, which had a 3% raise the first year, then slightly lower raises the following two years if I recall correctly.

Health care monthly premiums will be rising.  That won’t make any of us happy, but its hard to imagine the membership will vote this agreement down with all of the turmoil enveloping the US and world economy.

More details  will be released on Monday.  Of particular interest will be any additional detail on “respect” issues that are supposedly part of the new deal.  Hard to imagine that the company would have caved on GPS, QJD, or any other electronic monitoring that is already in place, but we will have to wait and see.

Obviously this isn’t rocket science, but CWA leaders don’t seem to understand how much they were played by the Qwest negotiating team.  Fortunately CWA district 7 members, while not rocket scientists either, were smart enough to recognize the crap sandwich their so-called “negotiating team” was trying to serve up to the members.

The latest is that union leaders want you to call the local to let them know what your “problem” is with the contract.   That way they can have a conference call tonight and figure out what they are going to do about this mess. Ridiculous.  How much more out of touch can they be?

No need to call you local union hall and tell them what your “problem” is with the contract.  Just tell them to read the piece of paper its written on and think about it for 10 seconds.  Givebacks and nothing given back to CWA workers, thats the problem with the contract.  Again, its not rocket science.

The CWA negotiating team and union leaders have just been slapped in the face by the members.  Time to get back to the table and bargain for us, not for Qwest.

So where does this leave us and Qwest?  Seems like no man’s land.  I don’t know if the union had a plan for this, it doesn’t sound like it as nobody I’ve talked to knows anything about anything. Will it mean a strike? Will CWA members be willing to strike Qwest with a still significant portion of the membership voting for the contract.  This is why you strike when the contract is up, when you have a strike vote approval of 95%+ backing up your leaders.  Do a strike on Qwest now, and it will be difficult to truly be united.

Really what it speaks to in my mind is what a poor contract the negotiating committee came back to the membership with.   What exactly were are these people thinking when they brought this back to the membership.  Huge increases in health care premiums are not acceptable, especially when Verizon settles a week before us with a contract that preserved fully paid health benefits.  Those disappeared 3 years ago here at Qwest with “enrollment fees.”

Didn’t the negotiating committee think we would stand together.  They bought Qwest’s cry wolf call again, and wimped out right before the DNC, the point in time we had the most power right before the 2008 conventions.

So what are your thoughts?  Should we go back to the table and tweak this deal, or should it be ripped apart and started again from square one?  All I know is that Qwest got over on  CWA this time, not the members but the leadership. They were able to save face before both national conventions, and now have the union split between the members and the so-called “leadership” of CWA.