Communication Workers of America Mobilizing Against H-1B

Date: Monday, April 22, 2002 1:14 PM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***
Get the Facts on H-1B at www.ZaZona.com

Many of us who oppose H-1B have said that eventually it will be used to
bust
unions. That day has come. AT&T is training foreign scabs at several
different locations. These scabs will take the jobs of American union
workers.

Steve Tiza CWA Local 4250 contacted me awhile back about H-1B. He became
aware that AT$T was training foreign scabs to replace union members. I
have
spent some time explaining to him the threat that H-1B poses for his
union.
Steve is learning very quickly and is taking action to protect his
union.
Steve brought H-1B up at a national union meeting and was snubbed. They
wouldn't discuss it. I suspect that may have something to do with the
fact
that the AFL/CIO has decided not to oppose H-1B.

Steve wasn't deterred and fortunately he is leading Local 4250 to
confront
the problem. They are fighting it by using an NBC TV ad. Look at this ad
at
http://www.cwalocal4250.org/ . The download is slow so I hit the pause
button on my Windows Media player until the entire file was downloaded.

Also be sure to check out this letter:
http://www.cwalocal4250.org/binarydata/IndiaandIraq.doc

AT&T is using a variation on the tactic that AIG used to replace it's
American workers. There are some important differences that I have been
able
to piece together:

AIG: Visa used was H-1B
AT&T: Visa type not known. Could be H-1B, H-3, or L-1 visas.

I'll refer to them as scabs.

AIG: non union
AT&T: unionized by the CWA

AIG: American employees such as Linda Kilcrease were

told to train H-1Bs on how to use the technology.

AT&T: Managers are training the foreign nationals.

This prevents the union from stopping the training.

AIG: After the training period the US workers were fired.
AT&T: Most of the scabs will go back to India. US workers

will be fired.

AIG: American workers were replaced with H-1Bs.
AT&T: American workers were replaced by H-1Bs or a similar temp visa.

Now another CWA chapter is getting into the action. Read this letter:

Hello President Bahr,

I am the Mobilizer for CWA Local 9415 and an AT&T frame relay
communications
technician working in Pleasanton,CA. AT&T has been training Foreign
Nationals for many months now at our 4430 Rosewood Drive location, 1st
floor. This building also has our CWA Nodals Techs on the 2nd floor and
U.S.replacement workers on the 3rd floor- the entire 3rd floor. Two of
our
stewards were recently shown a high level e-mail that accidentally went
to a
manager (lower level) questioning the time-frame of sending the circuit
testing component of our job to India along w/the TIRKS portion already
installed by IBM. Unfortunately, due to the manager's fear of reprisal
I
was not able to get a copy. I have 29 years as a CWA member- 28 of
those as
Union activist in various areas from Local 9404 VP to Union organizer.
(I
still have a letter you wrote me commending me in the NTS organizing
campaign. It meant a lot to me.) I believe AT&T is going to fire as
many
members as possible using the new "Performance Improvement Plan" just
being
rolled out, replace us w/contract workers as an interim measure, then
ship
our jobs off to India. That is a belief held by many of us who have
seen
these records. My husband scanned a list of names obtained through the
Company POST website- derived by who reports to the training supervisor.
(It
follows this email as AT&T Training Foreign Nationals-2.) Look how many
there are! This is unprecedented in my experience of the phone
companies
contingency planning.

Our Local President, Kathy Kinchius, has written a letter to AT&T
requesting
the names and status of people being trained in Building 3 but has had
no
response. There is a climate of fear, stress, and depression for the
Pleasanton AT&T workers now. The supervisors have been telling everyone
to
work as fast as possible and that people will be fired soon- a lot of
people. I know you are very busy and have written more than I had
intended,
but had to impart enough information to show "the big picture".

In Solidarity,
Christina Huggins

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