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Education and Telecom Units Chose CWA
CWA Local 9576 recorded a major organizing win among nearly 500 part-time instructors at a California community college, with substantial staff support from District 9 as well as help from CWA's Public Worker Department. Meanwhile, CWA Local 6171 won an election for 48 materials handlers at GTE Supply in Dallas, Texas.
It's Academic
Of 474 eligible workers at Allan Hancock Community College, 264 voted for CWA representation, 51 voted against, and three were challenged ballots, reported Virginia Rodriguez-Jones, administrative assistant to District 9 Vice President Tony Bixler, following the Nov. 19 election at the Public Employee Relations Board in San Francisco.
Pamela Gomes-St. Aubin, president of Local 9576, said part-time faculty members approached her local about a year and a half ago. Although they outnumbered full-time professors better than 4-to-1, she said, they had no seniority rights, no health care or pension benefits, not even offices on campus. Full-time faculty already belonged to an association that had different issues and was not interested in representing part-timers. Led by Debbie Brasket, the part-time faculty formed an inside committee and began to explore various unions.
They were impressed with Local 9576, Gomes-St. Aubin said, but were concerned that the local had no experience representing education workers. Their reservations fell away after they discovered through CWA's Public Worker Depart-ment and the Internet that CWA already represented thousands of faculty members throughout the University of California system, in the Midwest and on the East Coast.
Local 9576 provided the organizing committee with an office in Santa Maria, near the college's main campus, where CWA leaders frequently met with faculty members to answer questions and provide information. Instructors - often known as "freeway flyers" because they teach at more than one campus - drove from Santa Maria and from two other campuses at Lompoc, Calif., and Vandenberg Air Force Base, to meet with Gomes-St. Aubin and local Secretary-Treasurer Joe Manser. Jones said CWA Representatives Mark Bixler and Rudy Mendoza also "logged a lot of miles" to attend meetings and assist with the campaign.
Gomes-St. Aubin said the instructors deserve a lot of credit for resisting an anti-union campaign "that used the same tactics a telecom or cable TV company would use." Instructors were told if they voted for the union they might not be hired for the next semester. Some faculty received letters she described as "threatening." The new unit and local leaders are now preparing for bargaining.
GTE Supply
GTE agreed to include the Supply unit under the neutrality and consent election memorandum of agreement CWA negotiated on a national scale in the last round of bargaining and allowed CWA on-site access during the final weeks of the campaign. The unit on Nov. 18 voted 25-19 to join CWA.
"We lost an election in this unit several years ago," said District 6 Organizing Coordinator Sandy Rusher. "The group was of strategic importance to the local, because the non-represented group in Supply worked side by side with the represented workers."
District 6 Vice President Ben Turn credited hard work by Local President Mike Simmons and Executive Vice President Linda James, Rusher said, as well as CWA Representative Currie Hallford.
Simmons said Rusher and the local held off-site meetings for nearly a year to explain to the workers the benefits of CWA membership, and that Sherrill Barina and other former CWA members on the inside committee were persistent in identifying the workers' issues and supplying them information.
Uncertainty over wages and benefits helped swing the tide. Said Simmons, "These workers wanted a voice, and they wanted collective bargaining."
He expected contract negotiations to begin this month.
It's Academic
Of 474 eligible workers at Allan Hancock Community College, 264 voted for CWA representation, 51 voted against, and three were challenged ballots, reported Virginia Rodriguez-Jones, administrative assistant to District 9 Vice President Tony Bixler, following the Nov. 19 election at the Public Employee Relations Board in San Francisco.
Pamela Gomes-St. Aubin, president of Local 9576, said part-time faculty members approached her local about a year and a half ago. Although they outnumbered full-time professors better than 4-to-1, she said, they had no seniority rights, no health care or pension benefits, not even offices on campus. Full-time faculty already belonged to an association that had different issues and was not interested in representing part-timers. Led by Debbie Brasket, the part-time faculty formed an inside committee and began to explore various unions.
They were impressed with Local 9576, Gomes-St. Aubin said, but were concerned that the local had no experience representing education workers. Their reservations fell away after they discovered through CWA's Public Worker Depart-ment and the Internet that CWA already represented thousands of faculty members throughout the University of California system, in the Midwest and on the East Coast.
Local 9576 provided the organizing committee with an office in Santa Maria, near the college's main campus, where CWA leaders frequently met with faculty members to answer questions and provide information. Instructors - often known as "freeway flyers" because they teach at more than one campus - drove from Santa Maria and from two other campuses at Lompoc, Calif., and Vandenberg Air Force Base, to meet with Gomes-St. Aubin and local Secretary-Treasurer Joe Manser. Jones said CWA Representatives Mark Bixler and Rudy Mendoza also "logged a lot of miles" to attend meetings and assist with the campaign.
Gomes-St. Aubin said the instructors deserve a lot of credit for resisting an anti-union campaign "that used the same tactics a telecom or cable TV company would use." Instructors were told if they voted for the union they might not be hired for the next semester. Some faculty received letters she described as "threatening." The new unit and local leaders are now preparing for bargaining.
GTE Supply
GTE agreed to include the Supply unit under the neutrality and consent election memorandum of agreement CWA negotiated on a national scale in the last round of bargaining and allowed CWA on-site access during the final weeks of the campaign. The unit on Nov. 18 voted 25-19 to join CWA.
"We lost an election in this unit several years ago," said District 6 Organizing Coordinator Sandy Rusher. "The group was of strategic importance to the local, because the non-represented group in Supply worked side by side with the represented workers."
District 6 Vice President Ben Turn credited hard work by Local President Mike Simmons and Executive Vice President Linda James, Rusher said, as well as CWA Representative Currie Hallford.
Simmons said Rusher and the local held off-site meetings for nearly a year to explain to the workers the benefits of CWA membership, and that Sherrill Barina and other former CWA members on the inside committee were persistent in identifying the workers' issues and supplying them information.
Uncertainty over wages and benefits helped swing the tide. Said Simmons, "These workers wanted a voice, and they wanted collective bargaining."
He expected contract negotiations to begin this month.