From Thursday, June 19, 2008 through Friday, June 27, 2008, the CWA Local 2336 Executive Board will out of the office in attendance to "CWA’s 70^th Annual International Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In the absence of the Executive Board, the office will remain open at regular hours to deal with the concerns of our membership.

The Information Technology organization under James Gorndt has a need to reduce force and has offered EISP. Starting back on Friday, June 6^th, packages were mailed to employees impacted by this reduction in force need.

Volunteers will be accepted as necessary to meet business needs. The volunteer period begins on Thursday, June 12, 2008. Volunteers whose applications are accepted will have an off-payroll date of July 27, 2008.

On Tuesday, June 3, 2008, bargaining began for our Sisters and Brothers at AT&T Mobility over their Health Care benefits. This is NOT an isolated negotiation, and is just "Act One" of the contract fight we will be waging in 2009.

Every CWA member, in every CWA Local, in every AT&T Company will know if you try to attack the members of our family who work in the fastest growing part of AT&T.

Shame on you, AT&T, if you put outrageous demands on these workers while you rake in huge profits quarter after quarter.

We stand behind our Sisters and Brothers in Mobility, and when you sit down at the bargaining table, remember you are not sitting across from the members from AT&T Mobility alone—you are sitting across the table from the entire CWA Family.

On Wednesday, June 11, 2008, elements of the Local’s steward army turned out in support of Indian trafficking survivors at a rally outside the Department of Justice. At the rally, the survivors suspended their 29-day hunger strike because of their faith in allies who will fight along their sides until the traffickers are brought to justice.

United States Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called the treatment the workers faced at the hands of Indian recruiters and their employer, Signal International, "wrong, inhumane, and immoral". Kucinich and 17 other U.S. Congress members sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey last week demanding he "take the steps necessary to ensure the workers’ continued presence so that the DOJ can continue this important investigation of modern-day slavery, human trafficking, and forced labor, and bring these traffickers to justice."

The "guest worker program", which was designed to control labor, sanctions forced labor by migrants, and further disenfranchises the most vulnerable American workers. The hunger strike was launched to demand that the federal government investigate this program, and the abuse of post-Katrina Gulf Coast workers who mortgaged their futures on promises of fortune and green cards by recruiters from Signal International.