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Comm Tech Workers Strike Out Against Outsourcing
Chanting "American Jobs for American Workers," "Shame on You" and "No Outsourcing," about 150 CWA leaders on Feb. 23 demonstrated at the 2004 Outsourcing World Summit in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
They represented about half the participants at CWA's Communications & Technologies Leadership Conference, held Feb. 22-25. More would have attended the rally, but their bus was turned back by security guards, who locked the gates to the Disney resort compound where the summit was held, reported C&T Vice President Ralph Maly.
The CWA activists kept up a loud presence right outside the room where top managers of more than 100 companies - including CWA employers AT&T, Avaya and IBM - had been exploring how outsourcing and offshoring of jobs can benefit their bottom line. Security forces locked the managers inside, but the union members remained until dispersed by police.
"American corporations, aided by policies of the Bush administration, are destroying the information age jobs that were supposed to replace the millions of manufacturing jobs that have left our shores," said Maly, pointing out that CWA has been active in seeking to stem the growing trend toward outsourcing technical and call-center service jobs.
"We need to bring an awareness to both business and the community that this has to stop," Maly said.
The demonstration received media coverage on local Orlando TV.
Throughout the four days of their own conference, the 300 leaders of AT&T, Lucent and Avaya locals explored in workshops how CWA-represented jobs at AT&T have gone from 185,000 in 1984 to 17,000 today, and at Lucent Technologies, from 25,000 in 1988 to fewer than 4,000 now. Outsourcing has accounted for a great deal of those losses, with call center work in particular being outsourced to India.
Calling it "the single most important thing you can do in the coming months," CWA President Morton Bahr urged the leaders to return to their locals and to mobilize their members in the campaign to elect Senator John Kerry as president.
Bahr blamed President Bush for the loss of 3 million jobs during his watch, many of them to offshoring, and condemned Bush's chief economic advisor, Greg Mankiw, for a callous remark that exporting U.S. jobs to India and other low-wage countries is "good trade policy."
"John Kerry is making this a major issue in this election," Bahr said. "He is the American workers' last best hope to keep good American jobs here at home."
Bahr said Kerry has pledged to reward companies that create jobs and pointed out that Kerry introduced the Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act of 2003 (S. 1873), a version of CWA legislation that has been introduced in several states including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Representative Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) has introduced a companion bill (H.R. 3816) in the House.
Both the federal and state legislation would require call center workers to identify themselves and their locations. The state bills would also require that, upon request, offshore call centers route calls back to a U.S.-based worker.
Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling, who oversees CWA's legislative efforts, echoed Bahr's call for defeating Bush in the coming election and stressed - in the words of the conference theme - that, "Failure is Not an Option."
CWA Executive-Vice President Larry Cohen praised the example set by Orlando Local 3108 and President Pam Lawson, who borrowed that theme from the Apollo 13 mission and used it in a successful organizing campaign at AT&T Local Network Services. He pointed to additional organizing opportunities at LNS, in the AT&T Wireless units recently acquired by Cingular and in other AT&T units.
CWA Vice Presidents Jeff Rechenbach, District 4, Andy Milburn, District 6, John Thompson, District 7, Tony Bixler, District 9, and Vince Maisano, District 13, also participated in the conference.
The leaders also discussed a shareholder resolution introduced by CWA asking for a special review of whether AT&T's executive compensation policies "create an undue incentive to export jobs." A supporting statement argues that "the temptation to export jobs and make other shortsighted decisions is exacerbated by criteria that AT&T uses to determine bonus awards and incentive pay" for senior executives.
Pending approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission, it will appear on AT&T's proxy statement and be voted on by shareholders May 19 at the company's annual meeting in Austin, Texas. Maly said he and a large contingent of CWA members would be there to support its adoption.
"It's not a time to cry," Maly said. "It's a time to sweat. It's a time to utilize our prior resources and to work collectively in the political arena, the legislative arena and in the community. We need to make people aware that this country is moving to become the next third world country as far as jobs are concerned. Not everybody can cook hamburgers."
They represented about half the participants at CWA's Communications & Technologies Leadership Conference, held Feb. 22-25. More would have attended the rally, but their bus was turned back by security guards, who locked the gates to the Disney resort compound where the summit was held, reported C&T Vice President Ralph Maly.
The CWA activists kept up a loud presence right outside the room where top managers of more than 100 companies - including CWA employers AT&T, Avaya and IBM - had been exploring how outsourcing and offshoring of jobs can benefit their bottom line. Security forces locked the managers inside, but the union members remained until dispersed by police.
"American corporations, aided by policies of the Bush administration, are destroying the information age jobs that were supposed to replace the millions of manufacturing jobs that have left our shores," said Maly, pointing out that CWA has been active in seeking to stem the growing trend toward outsourcing technical and call-center service jobs.
"We need to bring an awareness to both business and the community that this has to stop," Maly said.
The demonstration received media coverage on local Orlando TV.
Throughout the four days of their own conference, the 300 leaders of AT&T, Lucent and Avaya locals explored in workshops how CWA-represented jobs at AT&T have gone from 185,000 in 1984 to 17,000 today, and at Lucent Technologies, from 25,000 in 1988 to fewer than 4,000 now. Outsourcing has accounted for a great deal of those losses, with call center work in particular being outsourced to India.
Calling it "the single most important thing you can do in the coming months," CWA President Morton Bahr urged the leaders to return to their locals and to mobilize their members in the campaign to elect Senator John Kerry as president.
Bahr blamed President Bush for the loss of 3 million jobs during his watch, many of them to offshoring, and condemned Bush's chief economic advisor, Greg Mankiw, for a callous remark that exporting U.S. jobs to India and other low-wage countries is "good trade policy."
"John Kerry is making this a major issue in this election," Bahr said. "He is the American workers' last best hope to keep good American jobs here at home."
Bahr said Kerry has pledged to reward companies that create jobs and pointed out that Kerry introduced the Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act of 2003 (S. 1873), a version of CWA legislation that has been introduced in several states including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Representative Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) has introduced a companion bill (H.R. 3816) in the House.
Both the federal and state legislation would require call center workers to identify themselves and their locations. The state bills would also require that, upon request, offshore call centers route calls back to a U.S.-based worker.
Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling, who oversees CWA's legislative efforts, echoed Bahr's call for defeating Bush in the coming election and stressed - in the words of the conference theme - that, "Failure is Not an Option."
CWA Executive-Vice President Larry Cohen praised the example set by Orlando Local 3108 and President Pam Lawson, who borrowed that theme from the Apollo 13 mission and used it in a successful organizing campaign at AT&T Local Network Services. He pointed to additional organizing opportunities at LNS, in the AT&T Wireless units recently acquired by Cingular and in other AT&T units.
CWA Vice Presidents Jeff Rechenbach, District 4, Andy Milburn, District 6, John Thompson, District 7, Tony Bixler, District 9, and Vince Maisano, District 13, also participated in the conference.
The leaders also discussed a shareholder resolution introduced by CWA asking for a special review of whether AT&T's executive compensation policies "create an undue incentive to export jobs." A supporting statement argues that "the temptation to export jobs and make other shortsighted decisions is exacerbated by criteria that AT&T uses to determine bonus awards and incentive pay" for senior executives.
Pending approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission, it will appear on AT&T's proxy statement and be voted on by shareholders May 19 at the company's annual meeting in Austin, Texas. Maly said he and a large contingent of CWA members would be there to support its adoption.
"It's not a time to cry," Maly said. "It's a time to sweat. It's a time to utilize our prior resources and to work collectively in the political arena, the legislative arena and in the community. We need to make people aware that this country is moving to become the next third world country as far as jobs are concerned. Not everybody can cook hamburgers."