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CWA Members Make Sure AllTel Gets the Message
Last December, AllTel Corp. tried an end run around CWA members in Little Rock, Ark. — the company’s corporate headquarters — but the union team was ready.
The communications company was objecting to radio ads that CWA had placed on stations in Little Rock and Dalton, Ga. The ads alerted consumers that the company was spending more than $6 million to put its name on a Jacksonville, Fla., football stadium while demanding big cuts in employees’ health insurance coverage and ignoring concerns about quality and service.
A phone call from a top AllTel executive to the station manager at KSSN got the ad pulled from two Little Rock stations. But it also got CWA officers and members out in force, leafleting outside KSSN-FM to make certain the public had the real story.
T.O. Moses, CWA vice president for telecommunications, joined officers and members of CWA Local 6507, 6508 and other supporters in letting AllTel and the radio stations know that censorship won’t be tolerated.
The radio stations’ actions even drew criticism from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which wrote an editorial under the title “The Vanishing Spots” and blasted “those vigilant defenders of free expression,” the two stations that caved in and pulled the ads. “Americans vote every day — maybe not with ballots, but with the decisions we make in the marketplace, by the products we buy, and how we choose to live or work, and yes, through the opinions, we voice — if we can find a forum for them. Freedom isn’t exercised just at the polls: it’s a 365-day-a-year enterprise,” it continued.
CWA has been trying to negotiate with AllTel for new contracts covering some 1,100 workers in Ohio, Georgia and three other bargaining units. But the company hasn’t been interested in reaching new agreements. Instead, it’s been busy negotiating with a number of sports franchises to put its name on the Jacksonville stadium and to contribute toward and lease a million-dollar skybox at the AllTel Arena in North Little Rock.
CWA members in all the AllTel units are mobilizing for fair contracts, and a newsletter has been distributed to keep members up to date on the latest developments. A second radio ad has run in Little Rock and other markets, reinforcing CWA’s message that “when it comes to quality service and fair treatment for workers, AllTel is all wrong.” An airplane flyover in Pittsburgh also carried that message, countering AllTel’s efforts to break into a new market.
The communications company was objecting to radio ads that CWA had placed on stations in Little Rock and Dalton, Ga. The ads alerted consumers that the company was spending more than $6 million to put its name on a Jacksonville, Fla., football stadium while demanding big cuts in employees’ health insurance coverage and ignoring concerns about quality and service.
A phone call from a top AllTel executive to the station manager at KSSN got the ad pulled from two Little Rock stations. But it also got CWA officers and members out in force, leafleting outside KSSN-FM to make certain the public had the real story.
T.O. Moses, CWA vice president for telecommunications, joined officers and members of CWA Local 6507, 6508 and other supporters in letting AllTel and the radio stations know that censorship won’t be tolerated.
The radio stations’ actions even drew criticism from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which wrote an editorial under the title “The Vanishing Spots” and blasted “those vigilant defenders of free expression,” the two stations that caved in and pulled the ads. “Americans vote every day — maybe not with ballots, but with the decisions we make in the marketplace, by the products we buy, and how we choose to live or work, and yes, through the opinions, we voice — if we can find a forum for them. Freedom isn’t exercised just at the polls: it’s a 365-day-a-year enterprise,” it continued.
CWA has been trying to negotiate with AllTel for new contracts covering some 1,100 workers in Ohio, Georgia and three other bargaining units. But the company hasn’t been interested in reaching new agreements. Instead, it’s been busy negotiating with a number of sports franchises to put its name on the Jacksonville stadium and to contribute toward and lease a million-dollar skybox at the AllTel Arena in North Little Rock.
CWA members in all the AllTel units are mobilizing for fair contracts, and a newsletter has been distributed to keep members up to date on the latest developments. A second radio ad has run in Little Rock and other markets, reinforcing CWA’s message that “when it comes to quality service and fair treatment for workers, AllTel is all wrong.” An airplane flyover in Pittsburgh also carried that message, countering AllTel’s efforts to break into a new market.