588 AT&T Customer Care Reps Vote CWA in New Hampshire

Concerned over the lack of job security, poor wages, and exorbitant health care costs, a unit of 588 customer care workers at an AT&T Government Solutions center in Dover, New Hampshire, gained representation with CWA Local 1298 through majority card check.  According to the state AFL-CIO it was the largest private sector organizing win in New Hampshire since 1966. The workers process passport applications under an AT&T contract with the U.S. Department of State.

"The leaders of the employees' inside committee did a tremendous job of educating the workforce, which is very young, about the value of having a union and bargaining rights in being able to address their concerns over the affordability of health care and other issues," said District One Vice President Chris Shelton. "We hope to make the workers proud by securing a fair first contract that raises wages, improves job security, and makes their health care more affordable," he said. A full time employee earns just under $22,000 a year, but the yearly deductible for family health care is $5,000.

The card check was certified by the American Arbitration Association on November 5, but CWA withheld making an announcement about the victory until now because of the onerous requirements that a Sept. 29 NLRB decision has put on workers who gain a union through card check.

The ruling by the Board's Republican majority gives anti-union workers, or a competing union, a 45-day period following a card check to petition the NLRB for a decertification election. In effect, this ruling means that just 30 percent of the workforce can force an NLRB election, even if the majority of the workforce signed up to join the union in a card check election.