Customer Service Conference: For Service Professionals, Different Fields But Common Concerns

They came from every employment sector in which workers pick up the phone and answer, "May I help you?" But whether in wireless or landline, operator services, airline reservations or newspaper ad sales, their work is much the same.

That's what 275 members who attended CWA's National Customer Service Conference, May 11-14 in Cranford, N.J., discovered as they shared experiences and job pressures.

In his keynote address, CWA President Morton Bahr praised the efforts of members fighting to protect workers' pensions from bankruptcy settlements in the airline industry. He urged all to prepare for tough bargaining as growing health benefit costs continue to dominate talks.

"Health benefit costs have risen astronomically, and our employers will continue their attempts to shift those costs to workers unless we can find a solution to the problem," Bahr said.

Bahr then introduced Kara DeWitt, a Verizon Wireless customer service representative who was fired recently for supposedly using too much sick time as she tried to care for two small children while her husband Dale, an Army reservist, served for 19 months in Iraq. Bahr told conferees that CWA is committed to helping her get her job back.

DeWitt's youngest daughter was born while Dale was overseas. "When I got back from maternity leave I was forced to use some extra sick time because he wasn't home to help watch the kids when they got sick," she said. "They put me on a written warning saying you can't take more leave for six months. During those six months I got a stomach bug and I asked to take vacation days, but they said no."

DeWitt noted that the non-union wireless company claims to be family-friendly, and is listed on the Working Mother list of 100 best companies for working mothers - "but that's a lie, they're not flexible."

CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling urged members to fight electronic monitoring, allowing bosses to eavesdrop on phone calls, peep at e-mails or keep track of bathroom breaks.

And she called for solidarity against outsourcing. "Since 2001 alone, some 2.7 million American jobs have been lost to outsourcing, and the situation is getting worse every day," Easterling said. "A University of California study has estimated that 14 million jobs are vulnerable to moving overseas in the next few years."

Among other presentations, Cornell University Professor Rose Batt reported on vast changes in the call center industry. In telecommunications, she noted that the traditional unionized part of the industry accounted for 98 percent of local communications in 1984 but comprises only 35 percent today.

Typical union-represented jobs done in-house pay nearly $40,000 a year and non-union jobs average nearly $30,000. Work outsourced to domestic contractors pays nearly $25,000. But Batt said work outsourced to India - where the typical call center worker has 14 years of education - pays less than $3,000.

Participants enthusiastically embraced a presentation on Global Customer Service Professionals Week by CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen's office. Education, mobilization and celebration activities are being planned by union call center workers around the world Oct 2-7. The emphasis in the United States will be on Thursday, Oct. 6.

Through a panel discussion, workers shared how their bargaining units are meeting today's challenges.

Local 4900 Area Representative Barry Ostrom said SBC changes will let the company route calls to any of its call centers, and it is also rolling out Project Lightspeed, providing high-speed Internet access and video. The company committed in the 2004 contract to bringing currently outsourced DSL support back into the bargaining unit.

At Verizon, workers are now selling fiber to the home, said Sandy Kmetyk, Local 13500 president. But her co-workers are angry that they can no longer sell wireless service, as Verizon split that work off to the virulently anti-union Verizon Wireless.

Jeremiah Greggains, Local 9407 president, reported on the solidarity among members in Districts 1, 2, 4, 7 and 9, that led to the successful conclusion of CWA's "Orange Contract" at Cingular.

Local 3406 President Judy Bruno reported that an internal organizing campaign by her local at the Cingular Wireless call center in Lafayette, La., has resulted in 80 percent of service reps becoming full-fledged, dues-paying members of CWA.

Chris Fox, president of Local 13302 said it is only because of CWA's efforts that after 37 years with US Airways she will get any pension at all, thanks to the company's bankruptcy filing.

Conference workshops looked at negotiating sales incentive commission plans, union approaches to attendance issues, curbing abusive monitoring, solving problems through joint committees, and organizing wireless.

Toward that end, the red-shirted participants marched on a local Circuit City store that sells Verizon Wireless, chanting union slogans.