CWA Ready for the Future: Building Bargaining Power Through Organizing

A strong organizing program is one of the foundations of the CWA Triangle," said District 4 Vice President Seth Rosen, chair of the CWA Executive Board's Committee on Organizing. "Power at the bargaining table is directly related to union density within a particular industry. We have to grow the union within the non-represented companies our members compete with. And we have to create political support for collective bargaining so that employers will tolerate our organizing efforts. Right now, they fight us at any cost."

To counteract employer resistance, the Executive Board proposes to increase the amount spent on organizing by the international union by one-half of 1 percent in each of the next four years, raising the total spent on organizing to 12 percent of budget by the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

The international, districts and sectors would develop organizing plans annually to grow CWA's power in core industries.

Locals would be encouraged to commit 10 percent of their annual resources to organizing, and the international union would commit $5 million annually to support local organizing programs.

The international would support district, state, city or other regional CWA organizations where groups of locals pool their resources to develop an organizing program and would recruit and support several Norma Powell fellows each year to develop more experienced organizers and maintain the diversity of the union.

Never has organizing been higher on CWA's agenda.

The United States is moving in exactly the opposite direction of most of the world's democracies by failing to support real workplace democracy. CWA representation in telecom is under constant pressure as companies strive to contain union membership in core areas while spinning off new work to non-union subsidiaries.

For example, CWA represents about 70,000 Verizon employees, but Verizon spins off its cellular division to non-union Verizon Wireless. They buy MCI Communications and set up a separate non-union company, Verizon Business, that does the exact same work as our Verizon members. They freeze pensions and announce they're cutting health care for anyone not represented by a union. They start moving more work and revenue to non-union parts of the business.

"In 2008, we negotiate with Verizon, where we used to represent about 80 percent of employees," said District 6 Vice President Andy Milburn, who also sits on the Executive Board's organizing committee along with District 7 Vice President Annie Hill, Telecommuni-cations Vice President Jimmy Gurganus, TNG-CWA President Linda Foley and Brooks Sunkett, CWA vice president for Public, Health Care and Education Workers. "Now, in the core company, we represent about 70,000 workers. But if you look at the whole of Verizon, including its subsidiaries, our level of representation is below 50 percent. We need to add to that prior to bargaining."

"If we organize Verizon Wireless and Verizon Business, we effectively double our level of representation across Verizon entities, and we level the competitive playing field for CWA-represented Cingular, currently the only organized wireless carrier."

A comprehensive campaign to organize all non-union areas of Verizon is one example the board offered for its proposed Strategic Industry Fund (see Strategic Industry Fund).

"The Executive Board has identified opportunities to organize additional thousands of workers in every CWA sector," said Ed Sabol, the union's senior director for organizing. Opportunities abound in the airline and broadcast industries, public sector, law enforcement, telecommunication and wireless (see Goals).

"There are numerous opportunities for our CWA sectors to work together to organize a single com-pany," Foley said. She pointed to Time Warner as an example of a company with enormous potential multi-sector organizing. The corporate behemoth provides cable TV service to almost 11 million customers in 27 states. It also competes as an Internet service provider and offers VoIP telephony.

But Time Warner and its subsidiaries also publish well over 100 magazines, where TNG-CWA does represent some editoral employees. The corporation also includes Turner Broadcasting and CNN, America Online, as well as media content outlets HBO and Cinemax, Warner Bros. motion pictures and Time Warner books. Clearly, a broad variety of Time Warner workers could find a home with CWA.

"When you look at the CWA triangle — politics, bargaining and organizing — we need to be strong on all three sides," said CWA Executive Vice President Jeff Rechenbach. "Through organizing we will bolster our clout at the bargaining table."