California Federation of Interpreters

(Santa Ana, Sept 3, 2019)

Dear R4 members,

Your committee attended the first mediation session held on September 4 in Santa Ana main courthouse.

Mediation requires that parties sign an agreement that they will not disclose the details of the session; therefore, we are simply not permitted to share that information with you. We can, however, proudly state that your committee fought hard, acted in good faith, and even came up with creative ideas in an attempt to get the best contract for all. By the end of a long day, however, we hit a roadblock and were shut down.

After we ended the formal mediation session we attempted to speak with Jamie Newton (senior HR analyst) and Monna Radulovich (counsel and Joe Wiley’s assistant), regarding OC’s reverse pick-up. In a nutshell, we were told that OC should be grateful that the reverse pick-up has been frozen and we should see it as a gift. Your entire committee couldn’t disagree more.

Your committee is still discussing this along with much more and appreciates your continued support as we try to get closure on this contract. Please bear in mind that there is a direct correlation between your active, vocal backing for a fair contract and our strength at the table. We are confident that with your active support we will succeed!

In Unity,

Maria Benitez

Ana Fuller

LouLou Tovar

Jackie Ruiz

Silvia San Martín

Ed Venegas, spokesperson

Laurie Burgess, lead spokesperson

Dear CFI Members:

There is a great deal of legislation that is presently on the edge of consideration by the state senate; we have been asked to participate in a campaign to get these two bills outlined below through to the governor’s desk.

AB 1677 (Call Center Bill) has the intention of keeping call center jobs here in the United States; it is important not only for our union brothers & sisters who work in the Telecomm Sector of our union, but with news that large language service companies are organizing VRI and Telephonic interpreting call centers overseas (Argentina and Costa Rica, to name a few), supporting this legislation would also protect our interests in keeping VRI within our unit work, and controlled by our contracts and California legislation.

AB1066 is within all union members’ interest, as it would make the ability to strike even more “affordable” with the ability to draw unemployment benefits while out on strike; with the recent bashing from Janus and other anti-union rulings, some even coming from the NLRB, this is a way to give energy to collective bargaining’s strongest tool in the work shed.

We encourage all members to assist in getting these two bills passed.

This legislative session our priorities have been supporting and trying to pass AB 1677 (Call Center bill) that we are sponsoring and AB 1066 (Unemployment Strike Benefit) that we are co-sponsoring. We are also opposing and trying to defeat AB 1366 (VOIP bill). I want to thank everyone of you that have taken action on our CWA Legislative priorities.

Many of you have shown up to numerous committee hearings and have sat for hours to be able to stand up at the mic to take a position. Others have sent emails and made calls. While some of you have come to the Capitol to personally lobby your legislator and others have gone to their legislator's District to lobby. Please know that whatever action you have taken towards our priorities, I am forever grateful and appreciate everything you have done.

We are now headed towards the finish line and need all hands on deck to meet our goals. We need every single CWA member in California to send an email to their Senator. We should have thousands of you participating, because not only is it easy, it's important! We have drafted the email for you, so no worries about what you need to write.

Send a Letter

Now is not the time to let up -- we must keep the emails coming to make sure our legislators know that CWA doesn't back down when it comes to standing up for our values!