Proceedings and Index of the 68th Annual Convention Communications Workers of America Las Vegas Hilton Hotel Las Vegas, Nevada July 10-11, 2006 MONDAY MORNING SESSION July 10, 2006 The Opening Session of the Sixty-Eighth Annual Convention of the Communications Workers of America, held in the Conrad Ballroom of the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, July 10-11, 2006, convened at 9:00 a.m., Louie Rocha, President, CWA Local 9423, Chair of the Northern California/Nevada Council, Temporary Chair, presiding. TEMPORARY CHAIR ROCHA: Good Morning! Buenos dias! We have a very full agenda this morning, so I ask all of you to take your seats. Will all of the delegates please take their seats. The official clock of the Northern California Council indicates that it is now 9:00 a.m. I would ask that everyone please be seated as I call the 68th Annual Convention of the Communications Workers of America to order. We have a busy schedule this morning and a very full two-day schedule, so would everyone please be seated so we can begin. I am Louie Rocha, President of the Northern California and Nevada Council and President of CWA Local 9423. Today I have the honor of serving as the Temporary Chair. On behalf of the officers and members of District 9, welcome to Las Vegas and the 68th Annual Convention of the Communications Workers of America. (Applause) As is our custom, we will open our Convention with a prayer. For the invocation, I would like to call upon Reverend Peter Romeo, Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of Las Vegas, Nevada. After the invocation, please remain standing for the presentation of the Colors and the singing of the National Anthems. Now please join me in welcoming Father Romeo. (Applause) REVEREND PETER A. ROMEO (Diocese of Las Vegas): Would you all please be seated. Never let it be said that a priest comes up and gives just a short, simple blessing. (Laughter) I would like to welcome you to Las Vegas. I always tell my friends when they come into town, “I hope you win a lot of money. But if you don’t win a lot of money, please make sure you don’t lose a lot of money, so it will be the same thing.” Before I begin, I want to do a meditation. It will be, first of all, on communications. The second part of the meditation will be on contracts. And it will conclude with a blessing. But before I begin, can I ask all of us to just bow our heads for a moment and put ourselves in the presence of God. As I begin, the longest, long distance, person-to-person communication that ever happened traveled a distance more than a city, more than a state, more than a country, more than a continent, indeed, more than the world itself. As a matter of fact, this communication traveled the distance more than the universe, many millions upon millions of light years. It came from God himself to a man named Moses. The longest-lasting contract that was ever established is almost 3,500 years old, and is still in effect. It’s called the Ten Commandments between God and Moses on Mt. Sinai. The reason this contract is so long- lasting is because it was established on two critical principles: The first principle is truth. God is truth. He cannot lie. And Moses was open to truth. The second principle was honesty. God is honest. He cannot deceive and he has no hidden agenda. And Moses was open to honesty. No good and effective contract can exist without these two essential elements of truth and honesty. You are here to discuss union business. May all the contracts you do always be truthful and honest and 2 for the betterment of the union, for the good of the workers, for the good of the companies and corporations, and for the good of the consumer to have a fair price for a good product. These goals deserve a blessing. I will paraphrase the words of Mary which she spoke when the Angel Gabriel informed her that she would be the mother of God, the mother of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke. And those words are: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for He has looked with favor on his lowly servant. The Almighty has done great things for me and Holy is his name. “He has mercy on those who love him in every generation. He has shown the strength of His arm. He has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things. He has come to the aid of His servant Israel, for He has remembered his promises of mercy, the promises He made to our fathers, to Abraham, and to His children forever.” So I give you this blessing: May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be set upon you and remain with you throughout all your deliberations during this Convention. God bless you. (Applause) TEMPORARY CHAIR ROCHA: Thank you, Father Peter. Will you all please stand and remain standing as we prepare for the presentation of the Colors and the singing of the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico National Anthems. Our Colors this morning will be presented by our very own members of the Henderson Police Department of Henderson, Nevada. Yolanda Mitchell, President of CWA Local 1181, will sing the National Anthem of the United States. Silvia Barden, Chair of the TNG-CWA Interpreter Unit and Local 39521 Representative, will sing the National Anthems of Canada and Puerto Rico. Presentation of Colors, followed by Yolanda Mitchell singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, and Silvia Barden singing a National Anthems of Canada and Puerto Rico . I would like to thank the Color Guard and our singers for their wonderful renditions of the national anthems. Please give them another round of applause. (Applause) . The Colors were retired . TEMPORARY CHAIR ROCHA: I’m very pleased to introduce our next speaker. He’s a committed activist who has dedicated his working life to making things better for working families. Danny Thompson was born in 1951 in Henderson, Nevada, where he still resides today. He joined the United Steel Workers of America just after high school while working at Stauffer Chemicals, and at age 25 he was elected President of his Steelworkers Local. That marked the beginning of many years of service to his fellow workers, his community and his state. In 1980, Danny was elected to the Nevada State Assembly, where he served through the 1989 session. He also has served on many committees and commissions, representing workers and their families. In 1991, Danny became the Nevada State AFL-CIO’s first Political Director and worked on many important campaigns including the re-election campaign of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid in 1998. In 1999, Danny was elected Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Nevada State AFL-CIO. In addition to these awesome accomplishments, Danny, in his spare time, is a member of the Board of Directors for the United Way of Southern Nevada. He is very involved in renewable energy issues and serves on the Board of 3 Directors of the National Renewable Energy Policy Project. We’re very pleased to have him with us today. Please join me in giving Danny Thompson a big CWA welcome. (Applause) DANNY THOMPSON (Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Nevada State AFL-CIO): Good morning. You know, I have to apologize. I was here Saturday for the Print and Media Group and welcomed them, so if you were there and you have heard part of this before, don’t worry. First of all, welcome to Las Vegas. Welcome to Nevada. You are in a union town, and you are in a great union hotel, and you have everybody in this town as a union member-- a police officer, a fire fighter, a nurse, a city worker, a county worker, a steelworker, an ironworker, an electrician, a plumber, the stagehands in this hotel, the cocktail waitresses, the bartenders. This is a union town. This is a union state. You know, there are only two states in the West that grew in their membership last year, and Nevada was one of them. If you consider-- I told the group on Saturday that every 20 seconds, but it’s not every 20 seconds-- a new home is completed in southern Nevada every 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes a new home is built here, so you can well imagine what kind of growth that is, and to understand that we have grown our membership along with that growth is a significant incident. There is something I have to tell you, though. The Las Vegas Strip is union. Those properties out there are all union, and I would urge you to patronize them. And I hope you all are gamblers. “Listen, if you lose,” the father said, “try not to lose too much; but if you do, feel good that you helped my kids with their education.” And that’s important. (Laughter) But there is something I have to tell you about one important property on the Las Vegas Strip. That is the Las Vegas Venetian Hotel. That hotel was built 100 percent union. It’s a beautiful hotel. It was built under the terms of a project labor agreement, which means that everybody on the job was a union member. (Applause) It’s the site of the old Sands Hotel, and for those of you who remember the old Sands, it was a very small property.