The Changing Information Services Industry

CWA Convention Resolution

June 1994

The telecommunications, entertainment, publishing, and computing industries are becoming one information services industry. This convergence raises new challenges for CWA.

Already we see costly mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures among telephone, cable, publishing, and other information service companies breaking down the barriers between formerly distinct industries and employers. As companies in the information industries converge, workers in these industries must join together to counter these powerful companies.

The impact of convergence on workers in these industries and on our communities will be profound. With competition driving change, information companies, driven by the need to pay for these deals and new technology, will strive to compete based not only on quality and innovation but by lowering wages and benefits.

CWA represents one-half million of the two million workers in the information industries. The relatively high standard of living of workers in the represented sectors of the industry is now threatened by non-union employers. The cable industry, which is only 5 percent organized, pays wages and benefits that average 33 percent less than average telephone worker compensation. Non-union Sprint Long Distance compensation is 22 percent lower than at AT&T.

Over the past decade, over 100,000 workers have joined CWA. Due to constant restructuring in information service industries, continued organizing at our existing employers to achieve Wall-to-Wall must be a major part of our union program.

Nearly every information service firm with low levels of union representation uses every available tactic to prevent self-organization by their workers. In the past several years, we have systematically documented such abuse by firms such as Sprint Long Distance, NCR, the cable giant TCI, as well as smaller and less known firms. We must continue to document these stories and to publicize employer abuse and the failure of legal systems to protect and promote organizing and collective bargaining.

Multi-national information service companies are expanding across borders in search of higher rates of profit. As information services firms go global, worker organizations must adopt global strategies. CWA has pioneered efforts to link telecommunications unions across national boundaries to fight for a Code of Conduct for multi-national telecommunications firms.

On the regulatory and legislative front, information industry convergence means that old regulatory structures have broken down. Federal and state legislators and regulators are writing new rules to set the terms of competition in the new information services industry.

CWA must continue to work with a broad coalition of labor and public interest organizations at the local, state, and national level to make sure that the new rules that govern communications policy benefits workers and communities, not just corporate interests.

Communications policy must promote the following three principles:

Universal, affordable access to advanced communications networks and services. CWA has consistently supported the principle of universal telecommunications service at an affordable price. The principle must now be upgraded to the competitive, multi-media environment. This includes a requirement that all communications carriers contribute to financing universal service standards, that government establish and enforce quality service standards, and that government fund libraries, schools, and community centers to provide at reasonable rates access to computers and advanced multi-media communications.
Competition based on technology, quality and innovation–not on depressing labor costs. Competition should not provide the occasion for a reversal of the achievements of independent representation in communications industries. Worker protections must be included in new regulatory schemes. At the federal level, CWA supports policies which require communications companies to establish one labor pool and one labor relations policy across corporate subsidiaries. Union-represented employees who move into jobs in unrepresented subsidiaries must be able to bring their representation rights with them. Communications firms receiving federal contracts who violate federal labor laws should be barred from further federal contracts. Finally, government must be a model employer by including communications contracts under prevailing wage and benefit standards.
The right of free speech, including public support for diverse programming and open networks. Driven by the profit motive, there is a danger that the new information superhighway will be dominated by shopping and entertainment programming and private networks. The principle of common carriage–that all providers have equal, non-discriminatory access to the backbone network–must apply to all networks. In addition, there must be adequate government support for the Internet, public programming, and to stimulate socially beneficial uses such as interactive learning and community services. Twenty percent of bandwidth should be reserved for use by non-profit community and worker organizations.

RESOLVED:That the Communications Workers of America supports the following program to ensure a positive future for workers and communities in the new information services environment:

Systematic education and discussion by union members on the implications of convergence for themselves, their children, union power, their standard of living, and employment security.
Links between our bargaining and worksite mobilization with demands for organizing rights for unorganized workers of existing employers to achieve our Wall-to-Wall goals.
Documentation of employer interference in organizing, publicizing employer abuse and the failure of legal systems to protect and to promote organizing and collective bargaining.
International solidarity coalitions at major multi-national firms to demand the minimum international Code of Conduct.
Alliances with community coalitions to work for affordable, universal, quality access to new information services; public support for diverse programming and open networks; and protection of worker organizational rights as communications companies restructure.