Union Sisters and Brothers,

On Tuesday, March 13, 2007 nearly 3 dozen UCW-CWA members from Knoxville and Chattanooga participated in our third annual Lobby Day. We left early in cars and vans, and arrived in Nashville at the State Capitol for a packed day of appointments with Legislators.

We brought essential information about the pay situation at our University. We explained the impact 30 years of declining real wages, the persistence of poverty level pay for staff, 2 years of President Petersen’s so-called “merit pay” increases for faculty, and pay compression throughout the system has had. Most importantly, we pressured the Legislature to act by giving all higher education workers a FAIR RAISE!

On behalf of our union, I would like to thank and congratulate all the members who took time out of their busy lives, as well as a day of annual leave, to lobby for fair pay and just treatment. These trips have REAL impacts on the raises we receive.

Our efforts to win a fair raise, instead of the paltry 1% the Governor has proposed, have just begun. In the coming weeks we will launch major email and letter writing campaigns to hold local politicians accountable to our demand for a fair raise. We will also be headed back to Nashville for more one-on-one meetings with our elected officials. If you are interested in helping out with these activities, please contact myself or Cameron Brooks for more information.

Together we can succeed. Through the work of our union we will!

In Solidarity,
Tom Smith, UCW-CWA local President