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Comcast Arbitration Victory Buoys Hopes in PA
Fireworks, backslaps and a company-sponsored breakfast at a local restaurant. It was a far different reception Comcast technician and Local 13000 member Reggie Frezzell received on Oct. 16 than the one he got from management at the company's South Hills, Pa., office a year ago when he was fired.
Co-workers and union members from the Pittsburgh area rode the state AFL-CIO bus to greet Frezell as he returned to work after his recent arbitration win.
What got Frezell fired? "I locked my keys in my truck one day, tried to get into it on my lunch hour and didn't record it," he said. Management falsely accused the union activist of falsifying company records. "I feel real good about proving them wrong," he said.
CWA represents about 135 technicians at Comcast's South Hills office.
On Oct. 15 an arbitrator ordered that Frezell return to his job with back pay, seniority and a lump sum payment of $5,000 to cover lost benefits. A second arbitrator ruled there was insufficient evidence to uphold the firing of Bill Gilchrist, another South Hills technician, accused of stealing garbage bags from a customer's premises in April. He too, will return to his job, though the date has not yet been set.
Both men have been staunch CWA supporters through four years of arduous organizing campaigns, legal machinations by Comcast to prevent reaching first contracts, ongoing tactics to stall bargaining and a wave of decertification elections at locations around the nation.
Frezzell and Gilchrist, prior to their dismissals, were stewards and members of the South Hills bargaining committee. The South Hills Comcast unit and several others in the Pittsburgh area have been bargaining with the company for more than two years.
"This is a huge victory for us at a company that is a prime example of the bargaining rights crisis in our nation," said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen. "That's why our locals and the AFL-CIO are ramping up to draw public attention to how companies treat their workers, enlisting public officials and candidates to intervene in labor disputes and to pass stronger bargaining rights laws, and planning mass actions in support of collective bargaining and organizing rights on Dec. 10."
Facing a decertification election Nov. 12, the South Hills technicians, immediately upon Frezzell's welcome-back reception, were whisked into a two-hour captive audience meeting with Comcast's senior director of labor relations for the Western Atlantic Region, said Marge Krueger, administrative assistant to District 13 Vice President Vince Maisano.
Krueger spearheaded organizing campaigns at AT&T Broadband, which later was purchased by Comcast, for more than 1,000 workers.
CWA negotiated an interim agreement with AT&T, short of a first contract, that gave Frezell and Gilchrist a grievance procedure and arbitration rights, ultimately leading to their reinstatement. That's not the story Krueger expected the workers would get from Comcast's Ed Ward.
"He'll spin why Reggie's back," she said.
"They basically try to make the union seem ineffective," Frezell said. "That's why I like coming back right before they do this, so people can see what can be done and why we need a union."
Co-workers and union members from the Pittsburgh area rode the state AFL-CIO bus to greet Frezell as he returned to work after his recent arbitration win.
What got Frezell fired? "I locked my keys in my truck one day, tried to get into it on my lunch hour and didn't record it," he said. Management falsely accused the union activist of falsifying company records. "I feel real good about proving them wrong," he said.
CWA represents about 135 technicians at Comcast's South Hills office.
On Oct. 15 an arbitrator ordered that Frezell return to his job with back pay, seniority and a lump sum payment of $5,000 to cover lost benefits. A second arbitrator ruled there was insufficient evidence to uphold the firing of Bill Gilchrist, another South Hills technician, accused of stealing garbage bags from a customer's premises in April. He too, will return to his job, though the date has not yet been set.
Both men have been staunch CWA supporters through four years of arduous organizing campaigns, legal machinations by Comcast to prevent reaching first contracts, ongoing tactics to stall bargaining and a wave of decertification elections at locations around the nation.
Frezzell and Gilchrist, prior to their dismissals, were stewards and members of the South Hills bargaining committee. The South Hills Comcast unit and several others in the Pittsburgh area have been bargaining with the company for more than two years.
"This is a huge victory for us at a company that is a prime example of the bargaining rights crisis in our nation," said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen. "That's why our locals and the AFL-CIO are ramping up to draw public attention to how companies treat their workers, enlisting public officials and candidates to intervene in labor disputes and to pass stronger bargaining rights laws, and planning mass actions in support of collective bargaining and organizing rights on Dec. 10."
Facing a decertification election Nov. 12, the South Hills technicians, immediately upon Frezzell's welcome-back reception, were whisked into a two-hour captive audience meeting with Comcast's senior director of labor relations for the Western Atlantic Region, said Marge Krueger, administrative assistant to District 13 Vice President Vince Maisano.
Krueger spearheaded organizing campaigns at AT&T Broadband, which later was purchased by Comcast, for more than 1,000 workers.
CWA negotiated an interim agreement with AT&T, short of a first contract, that gave Frezell and Gilchrist a grievance procedure and arbitration rights, ultimately leading to their reinstatement. That's not the story Krueger expected the workers would get from Comcast's Ed Ward.
"He'll spin why Reggie's back," she said.
"They basically try to make the union seem ineffective," Frezell said. "That's why I like coming back right before they do this, so people can see what can be done and why we need a union."