By Jane M. Von Bergen

– At a time when Verizon’s rivals Comcast and RCN Telecom Services are bringing customer-service calls back from overseas, the New York-based telecommunications giant is closing domestic call centers and sending some of the work abroad.

The extent of the movement of calls out of the country is a key bargaining issue in the strike against Verizon, which enters its 10th day Friday.

About 37,000 to 39,000 union members from New England to Virginia walked off the job April 13, with job security as a top priority. The last time the two sides met was Monday, and no new talks are scheduled.

“They are sending 5,000 jobs to the Philippines, India, Mexico,” said Edward Mooney, district vice president of the Communications Workers of America, one of the two unions on strike. “If we couldn’t generate the customer base to employ people, it would be one thing.”

Talking to workers on the picket line last week, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam acknowledged that some of the company’s DSL calls are handled in the Philippines and described it as a small part of the business.

“Let’s talk a little bit about keeping our jobs here,” he told workers near Syracuse. “That’s been very misrepresented.”

Verizon confirms that it has call-center operations in Mexico, India, and the Philippines.

“As a global company, we do have call centers around the world, to support our various lines of business,” spokesman Richard Young said.

Verizon wants to consolidate call centers for operating efficiency and to route calls to centers that can best serve customers when they call, Young said.

“We are a 24-7 business. We have found that many of our employees don’t want to work on holidays and Sundays” or overnight, he said. “They don’t want to be mandated to work overtime.”

Union officials called Young’s comment spin, saying that Verizon workers know they have to work Sundays, holidays, overnight, and overtime. But any forced overtime, they say, is a result of understaffing.

Mooney said Verizon never fulfilled workload promises it made in the 2011 contract that expired in August.

For example, 67 percent of customer sales-related calls generated from Pennsylvania were supposed to come into Pennsylvania call centers, said Julie Daloisio, president of CWA 13500, the local that represents those workers statewide.

Instead, Daloisio said, her workers handle 46 percent of the calls.

In 2011, her bargaining unit had 2,100 members. Now, it has about 900, after many left with buyouts, she said. To handle the volume of calls promised in the 2011 contract, more than 600 people would have to be hired.

“Job security is our Number One goal in this round of bargaining and securing the work that has been shipped out,” Daloisio said.

In New Jersey, only 10 percent of the “trouble” calls for repair and service come through New Jersey call centers, said Robert Speer, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 827, which represents those workers and is also on strike against Verizon.

The rest of the calls go out of state, first to other union centers and then to nonunion contractors in the United States and abroad, Speer said. The 2011 contract had mandated that Local 827 workers would get 53 percent of the calls.

“Who can better service you than someone who lives in the state? They know when storms come through,” he said.

His call centers get some of the best customer-service ratings in the nation because of Verizon’s excellent training, Speer said.

“They are understaffed, sending my calls to the Philippines, India,” he said. “Why not send them to the best in the nation?”

Young, the Verizon spokesman, said numbers are more appropriately argued at the bargaining table.

But, he said, the structure of having calls answered in the state where they are generated is inefficient, dating back to a time when regulators required telephone companies, such as New Jersey Bell or Bell of Pennsylvania, to operate separately.

“We have tried to regionalize,” he said, with a large call center planned for Verizon’s building at Ninth and Race Streets in Philadelphia. “It streamlines training. You can have one expert supporting 20” customer-service operators.

Some call centers have gotten so small, he said, that there’s almost no point in operating them. Seven call centers in the company’s New England-to-Virginia footprint have fewer than six employees, he said; of those, two are in the Allentown area and one in Gloucester County.

Union officials say that is because employment has systematically been scaled back. The number of workers needed to handle even the volume of calls that were part of the last contract would fill Verizon’s existing centers.

Young said offers now on the table would provide for job security for close to 80 percent of the unionized workforce, a good deal in today’s economy.

“Who, in 2016, has lifetime employment contracts?” he asked. “It’s an idea from another era that has come and gone.

Source – http://www.philly.com/philly/business/labor_and_unions/20160422_Sending_call-center_work_overseas_is_a_key_issue_in_Verizon_strike.html

By Jim Saksa

– Philadelphia taxi and limo drivers promised to take “further action” beginning Tuesday unless Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) CEO Rochelle Cameron takes steps to stop ride-hailing companies UberX and Lyft from operating at the airport.

News that Uber started allowing UberX drivers to pick up passengers from the airport was first reported by the Inquirer on Saturday. Through the app, Uber had previously blocked UberX drivers from PHL pickups. Taxis and limos, including limos hailed through UberBlack or UberSUV, pay hourly fees to the airport for the right to pick up passengers there. UberX and Lyft have ignored those fees.

According to a press release jointly issued by the Philadelphia Limousine Association (PLA) and the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania, Lyft started illegal airport pickups last June, whereas UberX began PHL operations last Wednesday. UberX has a larger presence in Philadelphia than its competitor Lyft, said Philadelphia Limousine Association spokesman Ali Razak, making their decision to muscle into airport pickups much more financially damaging to limo and taxi drivers. Razak described limo drivers as “desperate,” saying: “We can’t take it anymore.”

Razak said the taxi and limo drivers would give PHL officials until Tuesday to provide a satisfactory answer to their request, promising “a series of actions,” if the official response was tepid.

In an email, city spokesperson Ajeenah Amir said: “PHL and other city officials are in ongoing discussions with the parties involved. PHL has been informing passengers that state law prohibits ride sharing, and have posted signs on the monitors throughout the airport. Philadelphia Police Department are [sic] also enforcing this state regulation.”

Upon hearing this statement, Razak did not sound impressed. “There is nothing to discuss.”

“Should they discuss and negotiate with other criminals too?” Said Razak. “[City officials] are saying ridesharing is not allowed. We know they are not allowed. Why are [UberX and Lyft] there? Are they more powerful than the law?”

Saying that the city still had all of Tuesday to provide a response more acceptable to the drivers, Razak said that “one of the main actions could be a protest at the airport, a huge protest with taxis and limousines, everyone together.”

This isn’t the first time vague threats have been issued in Philadelphia’s ongoing ride-hailing saga. Back in March, a coalition including the PLA and the Taxi Workers issued ominous threats to take “extraordinary measures” in March unless Mayor Jim Kenney intervened in their dispute with the ride-hailing companies. Kenney ignored that ultimatum, which resulted in some muted protests near city hall. A few weeks later, the PLA—but not the Taxi Workers—promised to strike during the Democratic National Convention in late July.

UberBlack and UberSUV links passengers with limousines that are fully licensed and certified with the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA), which regulates taxis and limos in Philadelphia. UberX and Lyft connect passengers with drivers using their own cars. Access to arrival pickup zones is regulated by Philadelphia International Airport, which is overseen by the city’s Commerce Department.

Razak said that Uber was punishing UberBlack drivers by allowing UberX to operate at the airport. In recent months, UberBlack drivers have fought against their employer over the expansion of UberX in Philadelphia, which the PPA and the Court of Common Pleas have said operates illegally in the city. The PLA opposes a bill currently stymied in Harrisburg to legalize ride-hailing companies throughout Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. Razak also alleged that Uber was manipulating the app to artificially increase the estimated arrival times for UberBlack pickups, compared to UberX. As of Monday afternoon, pickup times at the Airport via the Uber app showed two minute wait estimates for UberBlack and three minute estimates for UberX.

When asked to respond to Razak’s added allegations, a spokesperson for Uber pointed to the wait estimates and also noted that UberBlack drivers get to use the Airport’s specifically designated limo pick up area near baggage claim, whereas UberX drivers need to go somewhat further to the private vehicles pickup area.

When asked whether Lyft had operated at the airport without paying the pickup fees, a spokesperson for Lyft responded by email: “We look forward to working with Philadelphia International Airport staff and are optimistic PHL will join the more than 40 airports across the country who have embraced the benefits ridesharing brings to their passengers.”

Source – http://planphilly.com/articles/2016/04/18/philadelphia-airport-next-arena-for-taxi-fight-against-uberx-lyft

By Associated Press

– United Airlines workers have ratified a set of new contracts that will increase their pay and benefits over the next five years.

Airline and union representatives said Saturday that the vote was “overwhelming” in favor of the contracts, which govern about 30,000 employees including airport workers, security officers and other staffers.

The new pacts will increase pay by about 30 percent over five years, raise pension benefits and halt outsourcing of some union jobs.

United said the agreements follow four months of negotiations and were reached before the old contracts were set to be amended.

Chicago-based United Continental Holdings Inc. recently negotiated separate deals with its pilots and dispatchers. It’s also in talks with flight attendants and technicians.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/92891-united-airlines-workers-ratify-new-contracts-

By Jane Von Bergan

– Outside a West Virginia courthouse, the families of the dead waited for Don Blankenship, the former chief executive of Massey Energy Inc., about to be sentenced for a mining disaster that killed 29 miners at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W. Va.

“I miss my son, my brother, my nephew!” shouted one man as camera crews captured the moment at the federal courthouse in Charleston on Wednesday. “How come you never came to apologize to me?”

Every day 12 people – sons and brothers, mothers, and daughters – die on the job because of hazardous conditions, but rarely do their employers face serious jail time, or anything more than a misdemeanor charge.

Such prosecutions are difficult – federal workplace safety laws are weak, and there is often a lack of cooperation between federal and state law enforcement.

But all that is changing. Important recent cases here and elsewhere show prosecutors using a range of creative legal techniques to navigate the gray zone between criminal and civil offenses that workplace deaths often occupy.

Exhibit A: Blankenship, sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison, making him one of the highest-ranking chief executives to face criminal charges – and jail time – for workplace fatalities.

On April 5, 2010, an explosion killed 29 miners at Upper Big Branch. Federal prosecutors argued that unsafe conditions caused the explosion. Blankenship contended it was an accident, caused by natural gas.

Five years later, on Dec. 15, after weeks of testimony about unsafe conditions in the mine, jurors found Blankenship guilty of a federal misdemeanor of conspiring to violate mine safety laws. The jury acquitted him of felonies that could have put him in prison for decades.

The conviction aligns Blankenship with a Philadelphia roofer, a California film director, and a New Hampshire gunpowder executive. All have been criminally charged in connection with the workplace deaths of their employees, and all are going or have been to prison.

“It’s one thing [for company owners] to have their insurance company pay fines, and it’s another thing to have them personally in jail,” said Barbara Rahke, director of PhilaPOSH, an advocacy group that works to improve worker safety.

Increased accountability for owners and managers will lead to improved workplace safety, legal experts say.

“We’re seeing a boom in white-collar prosecutions, and workplace prosecutions are part of it,” said University of Maryland law professor Rena Steinzor. “These are middle-class people running companies. If they are prosecuted – even a few of them – there will be a tremendous deterrent.”

Successful criminal prosecutions often hinge on careful, creative application of existing laws. The chief executives “aren’t guilty of murder because they don’t say, ‘I’m going to work to kill someone,’ ” said Steinzor, who, in 2014, wrote Why Not Jail?, a book on a trend of criminal prosecution for what had been considered civil offenses.

So it’s up to prosecutors to find a different path to conviction, particularly since federal officials themselves are frustrated with the penalties in the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act.

“The maximum period of incarceration upon conviction for a violation that costs a worker’s life is six months in jail, making these crimes a misdemeanor,” Assistant U.S. Labor Secretary David Michaels testified before Congress in October.

One response is what Steinzor calls an “Al Capone” strategy: charging executives with “process violations” rather than with crimes directly related to the deaths.

Blankenship, for example, was charged in federal court with a misdemeanor – conspiracy to violate mine safety laws – and two felonies involving making false statements about the disaster.

The jury convicted him of the misdemeanor and acquitted him of the felonies, which could have added decades of prison time.

Federal prosecutors wanted U.S. District Judge Irene Berger to throw the book at Blankenship, but given the law, Berger, a miner’s daughter, barely had a booklet to toss.

Berger sentenced Blankenship to the maximum penalty, a year in prison and a $250,000 fine as he continued to assert his innocence.

“By putting profits of the company ahead of the safety of your miners, you, Mr. Blankenship, created a culture of noncompliance at Upper Big Branch,” Berger said, the West Virginia Gazette Mail reported.

A similar pattern of charges occurred in Philadelphia, in the case of roofer James McCullagh, 60, of Meadowbrook, ordered to report to prison April 29.

McCullagh violated federal safety laws by not issuing a safety harness to his employee and friend Mark T. Smith, then 52, of Northeast Philadelphia.

So, on June 21, 2013, when scaffolding gave way atop the Old Zion Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, there was nothing to save Smith, who fell 45 feet, bouncing off a lower roof, then bleeding and struggling for breath on the sidewalk. He died at a hospital.

McCullagh lied to inspectors and instructed his workers to lie as well, telling OSHA inspectors that they had been issued harnesses but that Smith had decided not to wear his.

It wasn’t true, and it never had been.

McCullagh’s was the first local case that officials in the U.S. Labor and Justice Departments could remember in which any criminal sanction – even for a process violation – was brought against an employer on a job-site death and only one of a handful brought nationally, a Labor Department spokeswoman said.

McCullagh pleaded guilty to six charges – five felonies in connection with the lying and one misdemeanor involving violating OSHA regulations. He had been a repeat violator.

On March 29, U.S. District Judge Nitza I. Quinones Alejandro sentenced him to 10 months for each felony and six months for the OSHA misdemeanor, all to run concurrently.

“I think [the McCullagh] case is emblematic,” Steinzor said. “Getting someone for lying to the agency.”

In Georgia and New Hampshire, prosecutors took a different approach, turning to state criminal laws to make manslaughter charges stick against employers whose gross negligence caused worker deaths.

In Georgia, film director Randy Miller, convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of a film assistant, was released from jail last month, halfway through a two-year term.

Shooting Midnight Rider, a biographical film about the rock musician Gregg Allman, Miller ordered the crew set up on an active rail track and trestle, even though CSX had refused permission. When a train roared down the track on Feb. 20, 2014, Sarah Jones, 27, was killed.

In New Hampshire, the owner of a gunpowder manufacturing plant was not even in the state when his Black Mag gunpowder factory exploded in 2010, killing two employees.

That complicated matters for Coos County Attorney John McCormick, who still managed to win a conviction against Craig Sanborn for manslaughter and negligent homicide.

In December, the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld Sanborn’s conviction, and he remains in prison, serving a 10- to 20-year term.

Sanborn acted recklessly, consciously disregarded a substantial risk,” McCormick said in an interview. “We’re not talking about a roofer or a run-of-the-mill factory. He was manufacturing gunpowder.”

Sanborn consistently ran afoul of inspectors. A state police bomb inspector denied Sanborn’s application to store 1,000 pounds of powder at the site, but Sanborn did it anyway.

McCormick said it was his decision, made in consultation with OSHA, and relying on its investigation, to press the Sanborn case on state court homicide charges.

So why didn’t a similar prosecution – more serious criminal charges carrying more significant jail time – happen in Philadelphia in the McCullagh case?

One complication is the thicket of state and federal agencies involved, each with separate goals and priorities and different laws to enforce.

In this case, the U.S. Labor Department and OSHA “determined that the referral to the Department of Justice [for possible criminal prosecution] was the appropriate course of action,” Labor Department spokeswoman Lenore Uddyback-Fortson said.

When McCullagh was indicted by federal prosecutors on June 9, 2015, the two-year statute of limitations on the state charge of involuntary manslaughter had nearly expired.

Through their spokespeople, U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams would not say whether the two law enforcement organizations had discussed the case, whether they considered a manslaughter charge, whether such a charge was appropriate, or, more broadly, whether there had been any talk of a routine assessment of how workplace fatalities should be treated.

The McCullagh case “would be a tough sell under negligent homicide,” said former federal prosecutor L. George Parry, a criminal-defense lawyer in Philadelphia, referring to an involuntary-manslaughter charge.

“That guy on the roof is assuming the risk,” he said. “He knows he’s up there without a safety belt, and he goes up.”

Rahke, the worker safety advocate with PhilaPOSH, doesn’t buy it.

People desperate for work may go along when employers put them in unsafe situations, even if they know better, she said.

Source – http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160410_Prosecutors_make_new_efforts_to_jail_executives_for_workplace_deaths.html

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