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500 Professional Employees Flock to CWA
Engineers, librarians, social workers - these are just a few of the titles of 534 professional employees in Jacksonville, Fla., who voted 327-36 for CWA representation in an election run by the state Public Employees Relations Commission.
The campaign got underway in November 2004, when Ron Roberson, an air-quality control engineer for the city, told his wife about the situation he and co-workers found themselves in: no wage increase for three years, no grievance procedure, increasing employee costs for health insurance and other retrogressive demands from the city.
Of course, it helped that his wife is District 3 Organizing Coordinator Liz Roberson. Liz contacted Local 3106 President Lyn DeLoach, who put local Organizer Joshua Denmark on the campaign.
"We held our first meeting Dec. 18 at the union hall," Liz Roberson said. "Only about 10 people showed up. But after we did leafleting, requested names from the city and did phone banking, we got a lot more."
She learned that the city wanted to take away a benefit that allowed workers to sell back to the city unused leave dates and to impose a merit pay system for wage increases.
The unit, which formerly belonged to AFSCME, later voted for representation by an individual, Jack Daniels. In three years of bargaining since then, he was never able to break through to a contract. Though initially considered, CWA decided to forego an attempt to reach an affiliation agreement and instead took the workers' cause to a PERC election.
The workers formed a loosely knit organizing committee headed by Ron Roberson, Tilmon Brown and Steve Mailcoat, also engineers, and Eric Larsen, a librarian. Because they are spread across numerous city departments, they relied largely on e-mail to spread the word about the union.
Mail ballots went out on Feb. 22, were due back on March 15 and were counted March 16, Liz Roberson said.
"One of the reasons I think this went so well," she said, "is that about 90 percent of the city was already represented by a union. Everybody got a contract this year, except this unit."
With a real union to fight for them, "that will soon change," Roberson said.
The campaign got underway in November 2004, when Ron Roberson, an air-quality control engineer for the city, told his wife about the situation he and co-workers found themselves in: no wage increase for three years, no grievance procedure, increasing employee costs for health insurance and other retrogressive demands from the city.
Of course, it helped that his wife is District 3 Organizing Coordinator Liz Roberson. Liz contacted Local 3106 President Lyn DeLoach, who put local Organizer Joshua Denmark on the campaign.
"We held our first meeting Dec. 18 at the union hall," Liz Roberson said. "Only about 10 people showed up. But after we did leafleting, requested names from the city and did phone banking, we got a lot more."
She learned that the city wanted to take away a benefit that allowed workers to sell back to the city unused leave dates and to impose a merit pay system for wage increases.
The unit, which formerly belonged to AFSCME, later voted for representation by an individual, Jack Daniels. In three years of bargaining since then, he was never able to break through to a contract. Though initially considered, CWA decided to forego an attempt to reach an affiliation agreement and instead took the workers' cause to a PERC election.
The workers formed a loosely knit organizing committee headed by Ron Roberson, Tilmon Brown and Steve Mailcoat, also engineers, and Eric Larsen, a librarian. Because they are spread across numerous city departments, they relied largely on e-mail to spread the word about the union.
Mail ballots went out on Feb. 22, were due back on March 15 and were counted March 16, Liz Roberson said.
"One of the reasons I think this went so well," she said, "is that about 90 percent of the city was already represented by a union. Everybody got a contract this year, except this unit."
With a real union to fight for them, "that will soon change," Roberson said.