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CWA Mobilizing for Summer Talks with Bell Atlantic
By the time Bell Atlantic and CWA meet at the bargaining table this summer, the company shouldn’t have any doubt about the union’s determination to win a fair contract.
With a shareholders’ meeting rally, weekly “red-shirt” days and a sea of black shirts the day bargaining starts in June, CWA plans to make sure that Bell Atlantic knows it’s dealing with a united workforce.
“When we stand together, solid as a rock, nobody can break us,” CWA President Morton Bahr said, addressing some 250 local officers and staff from Districts 1, 2 and 13 during a three-day conference in Atlantic City in mid-March.
Forcing Bell Atlantic to respect the union contract, persuading the company to ease the stress on micro-managed operators and service representatives, improving pensions and salaries — all of it depends on mobilizing and organizing the company’s 73,000 CWA members, Bahr and other speakers said.
“I guarantee you, it’s mobilization that wins a contract,” said Barbara Lephardt, assistant to District 2 Vice President Pete Catucci, as she launched an overview of the mobilization plan.
The involved districts are planning three joint activities, beginning with the Bell Atlantic shareholders’ meeting in mid-May. The company hasn’t announced a time and place, but is expected to do so soon.
Depending on the location, members may be bused in for rallies and speeches. Employees left at work will host their own shareholders’ meetings, gathering to talk about what they want in a new contract.
The day bargaining starts, June 26, employees are being asked to wear black shirts to work. It’s being dubbed “A day to mourn the death of respect.” Employees are still being urged to wear red shirts every Thursday, as they’ve done for years.
A third joint action, still in the planning stage, will be held the last day of the present two-year contract, Aug. 4.
Already, mobilization coordinators in district are being trained to train other stewards and coordinators in a “Bargaining for our Future” workshop. The idea is to make members familiar with the issues and able to talk articulately about them, helping the media and community at large understand what’s at stake.
Knowing what’s important union-wide also makes it tough for the company to divide and conquer, speakers said. “We have to keep in mind, ‘How is this going to affect my brothers and sisters, from Maine to West Virginia?’” District 13 Vice President Vince Maisano said. “There’s only one chance for this company to prevent us from reaching our goals . . . and that’s if they succeed in dividing us over the issues.”
Bahr said CWA wants to avoid a strike, if possible. However, he said the CWA strike fund is in “sound condition” to help members if necessary.
The crowd responded with a standing ovation when a fellow union leader pledged that his members would join CWA on the picket line, if that’s what it takes in August. “I can assure you that if you are on strike in 2000, the IBEW will be on strike in 2000,” said Myles Calvey of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which has 13,000 members at Bell Atlantic.
It was a significant moment. Just two years ago, IBEW failed to back CWA in a two-day strike against Bell Atlantic. “We were flat-out dumb,” Calvey told the crowd.
The contract, affecting 73,000 CWA members and 13,000 IBEW members, is the third-largest being negotiated in the United States this year. The top two involve 400,000 postal employees and 155,000 railroad workers.
Bell Atlantic is in the process of merging with GTE, a marriage that will create the telecommunications industry’s largest company, with profits exceeding $8.4 billion annually. Even so, competition is fierce and even a short walkout would severely threaten Bell Atlantic’s market share.
Wages and improved pensions and other benefits are among key issues, and the CWA bargaining team is armed with financial data that shows the telecommunications giant has ample profit to share. Bell Atlantic CEO Ivan Seidenberg was paid $13.9 million in 1998 — 397 times more than the average employee. In 1999, the company’s profits per worker were $37,100, a whopping 25.4 percent jump from 1997.
But employees want more than money from Bell Atlantic. The heart of the bargaining agenda is respect, for the union at large and for workers on a personal level.
Jerry Hayes, assistant to District 1 Vice President Larry Mancino, reported that unfair labor practice complaints are mounting against Bell Atlantic. “It clearly demonstrates a lack of respect this company has for the union,” he said. “That has to change.”
Also critical will be a commitment from management to allow card-check recognition to organize Bell Atlantic Mobile, and a pledge to remain neutral in union organizing campaigns, commitments its top competitors have already made.
“It’s imperative we demand access to these new (wireless) jobs,” Bahr said. “We can’t permit this new line of business, which is going to grow exponentially, to remain nonunion. If Bell Atlantic wants a war over this issue, we will give it to them.”
Employees on a personal level — particularly operators and customer-service representatives — are under extreme stress, working in what a local officer called “modern-day sweatshops.” They are monitored electronically, disciplined for the slightest, perceived misstep, ordered to fill arbitrary sales quotas, denied requests for vacation and family leave, refused transfers and forced to work overtime at a moment’s notice, resulting in chaos for their families at home and children in daycare, according to several participants.
Catucci called the issues a matter of “voice, respect and dignity.” He said CWA will demand a contract that “gives everybody a right, at the end of the workday, to go home.”
Speakers put Bell Atlantic on notice, pledging that CWA members are better prepared headed into negotiations than they’ve ever been. Noting the initials on the pending Bell Atlantic-GTE merger, Hayes suggested what BA-GTE might stand for: “Bell Atlantic, Give The Employees respect and recognition by Aug. 5 or suffer the consequences.”
With a shareholders’ meeting rally, weekly “red-shirt” days and a sea of black shirts the day bargaining starts in June, CWA plans to make sure that Bell Atlantic knows it’s dealing with a united workforce.
“When we stand together, solid as a rock, nobody can break us,” CWA President Morton Bahr said, addressing some 250 local officers and staff from Districts 1, 2 and 13 during a three-day conference in Atlantic City in mid-March.
Forcing Bell Atlantic to respect the union contract, persuading the company to ease the stress on micro-managed operators and service representatives, improving pensions and salaries — all of it depends on mobilizing and organizing the company’s 73,000 CWA members, Bahr and other speakers said.
“I guarantee you, it’s mobilization that wins a contract,” said Barbara Lephardt, assistant to District 2 Vice President Pete Catucci, as she launched an overview of the mobilization plan.
The involved districts are planning three joint activities, beginning with the Bell Atlantic shareholders’ meeting in mid-May. The company hasn’t announced a time and place, but is expected to do so soon.
Depending on the location, members may be bused in for rallies and speeches. Employees left at work will host their own shareholders’ meetings, gathering to talk about what they want in a new contract.
The day bargaining starts, June 26, employees are being asked to wear black shirts to work. It’s being dubbed “A day to mourn the death of respect.” Employees are still being urged to wear red shirts every Thursday, as they’ve done for years.
A third joint action, still in the planning stage, will be held the last day of the present two-year contract, Aug. 4.
Already, mobilization coordinators in district are being trained to train other stewards and coordinators in a “Bargaining for our Future” workshop. The idea is to make members familiar with the issues and able to talk articulately about them, helping the media and community at large understand what’s at stake.
Knowing what’s important union-wide also makes it tough for the company to divide and conquer, speakers said. “We have to keep in mind, ‘How is this going to affect my brothers and sisters, from Maine to West Virginia?’” District 13 Vice President Vince Maisano said. “There’s only one chance for this company to prevent us from reaching our goals . . . and that’s if they succeed in dividing us over the issues.”
Bahr said CWA wants to avoid a strike, if possible. However, he said the CWA strike fund is in “sound condition” to help members if necessary.
The crowd responded with a standing ovation when a fellow union leader pledged that his members would join CWA on the picket line, if that’s what it takes in August. “I can assure you that if you are on strike in 2000, the IBEW will be on strike in 2000,” said Myles Calvey of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which has 13,000 members at Bell Atlantic.
It was a significant moment. Just two years ago, IBEW failed to back CWA in a two-day strike against Bell Atlantic. “We were flat-out dumb,” Calvey told the crowd.
The contract, affecting 73,000 CWA members and 13,000 IBEW members, is the third-largest being negotiated in the United States this year. The top two involve 400,000 postal employees and 155,000 railroad workers.
Bell Atlantic is in the process of merging with GTE, a marriage that will create the telecommunications industry’s largest company, with profits exceeding $8.4 billion annually. Even so, competition is fierce and even a short walkout would severely threaten Bell Atlantic’s market share.
Wages and improved pensions and other benefits are among key issues, and the CWA bargaining team is armed with financial data that shows the telecommunications giant has ample profit to share. Bell Atlantic CEO Ivan Seidenberg was paid $13.9 million in 1998 — 397 times more than the average employee. In 1999, the company’s profits per worker were $37,100, a whopping 25.4 percent jump from 1997.
But employees want more than money from Bell Atlantic. The heart of the bargaining agenda is respect, for the union at large and for workers on a personal level.
Jerry Hayes, assistant to District 1 Vice President Larry Mancino, reported that unfair labor practice complaints are mounting against Bell Atlantic. “It clearly demonstrates a lack of respect this company has for the union,” he said. “That has to change.”
Also critical will be a commitment from management to allow card-check recognition to organize Bell Atlantic Mobile, and a pledge to remain neutral in union organizing campaigns, commitments its top competitors have already made.
“It’s imperative we demand access to these new (wireless) jobs,” Bahr said. “We can’t permit this new line of business, which is going to grow exponentially, to remain nonunion. If Bell Atlantic wants a war over this issue, we will give it to them.”
Employees on a personal level — particularly operators and customer-service representatives — are under extreme stress, working in what a local officer called “modern-day sweatshops.” They are monitored electronically, disciplined for the slightest, perceived misstep, ordered to fill arbitrary sales quotas, denied requests for vacation and family leave, refused transfers and forced to work overtime at a moment’s notice, resulting in chaos for their families at home and children in daycare, according to several participants.
Catucci called the issues a matter of “voice, respect and dignity.” He said CWA will demand a contract that “gives everybody a right, at the end of the workday, to go home.”
Speakers put Bell Atlantic on notice, pledging that CWA members are better prepared headed into negotiations than they’ve ever been. Noting the initials on the pending Bell Atlantic-GTE merger, Hayes suggested what BA-GTE might stand for: “Bell Atlantic, Give The Employees respect and recognition by Aug. 5 or suffer the consequences.”