500 AT&T and Municipal Employees Organize with CWA

More than 500 workers from AT&T Mobility in Boardman, Ohio, and the city of Stillwater in Oklahoma, took different paths to union representation following recent majority signup elections.

For 262 city workers in Stillwater, Okla., their drive required two separate card filings of strong majority support before the city's public employee representation board granted them recognition as part of  Local 6012 on Aug. 14. In April, the local filed with an overwhelming majority – over 65 percent – and should have been granted recognition according to the state's collective bargaining law for municipal employees. Despite this, the PERB was going to require a mail ballot election because city managers, who were hostile to the workers' union drive, charged that many of the signature cards were too old.

But immediately after the PERB ruling, the local re-filed the next day after more than 55 percent of the workers quickly signed new cards, resulting in recognition. Two workers from a unit of city workers in Broken Arrow, Okla., that organized with Local 6012 several years ago, assisted local President Cindy Mills and organizers Micah Timmons and Rick Durmer in the campaign.

In Boardman, Ohio, 250 customer service representatives at a newly-purchased AT&T Mobility call center won union certification on Aug. 12 following a majority signup campaign. They will be represented by Local 4320. The call center was operated by Dobson Communications until the company's business in northern Ohio became part of AT&T earlier this year.

The workers sought union representation when the center's holdover management team told employees that Dobson's policies and practices – harsh discipline, hard-to-meet sales goals, arbitrary scheduling, and unequal pay treatment – would continue in force. Local Vice President Cathy Mason and mobilizer Phil Pennington helped employees build a strong inside committee that garnered over 66 percent support from co-workers. Another 60 retail sales and techs from Dobson will be accreted into the local.