In My Opinion: A High-Road Model for a New Era

Among corporations that will be recognized at the AFL-CIO’s Union Industries Show this May for positive labor and community relations is SBC Communications.

And just the most recent example of why that recognition is deserved was an invitation I received from SBC Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre to attend, together with the four CWA district vice presidents who deal with SBC, a “leadership summit” in Houston along with some 3,000 company managers.

Whitacre made it clear that he considered it critical both that CWA members be represented in this discussion of SBC’s future, and that through our participation, SBC managers at every level come to understand the corporation’s commitment to a real partnership with CWA.

Further, at my suggestion, the CEO enthusiastically embraced the idea of a meeting this year between top SBC officers and leaders of unions from countries around the world where SBC does business. I’ll soon be arranging that meeting in my capacity as president of the Telecom Sector of the Union Network International.

We have our day to day differences with SBC as we do with other employers, of course, but at the same time we’re building a foundation of mutual respect and trust that makes it easier to resolve problems and work together on issues of joint interest.

Making this possible is top management’s genuine belief that SBC’s success depends on dedicated, highly skilled workers, and that its relationship with the union is a positive asset in fostering workforce stability and good employee morale.

Other companies give lip service to that philosophy, but SBC backs it up, such as in becoming the first telecom company to agree to card check union recognition, which has opened the door to CWA’s organizing more than 5,000 workers at SBC’s wireless operations across the country in just four years.

Other Bell companies and AT&T need to be put on notice that we will be insisting on similar card check agreements for the booming wireless sector throughout the industry as we enter the next round of telecom talks, beginning this summer with Bell Atlantic.

Today’s economic globalization too often is an excuse for companies to opt for the low road of union avoidance and attempts to weaken wage and benefit standards, as we have seen in some areas of the manufacturing sector. We’re absolutely determined to maintain high road labor relations in communications and in the other fields where CWA members work.

If SBC is a model of responsible, high-road corporate behavior, close to the opposite among major American multinationals today is General Electric. At GE’s NBC broadcasting subsidiary, NABET-CWA members have struggled against attacks on the union’s jurisdiction and constant attempts to replace permanent positions with the use of daily hires. The 13 other unions at GE also have seen a steady erosion of union jobs and union power as GE has both shifted operations overseas and expanded into new businesses that it has kept unorganized.

CWA joined with some of these unions at last month’s AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in spotlighting GE’s irresponsible behavior (see page 5). One of the most shocking revelations in my view was the fact that GE is using its enormous business clout to insist that suppliers to its jet engine, appliance and electronics operations move their own facilities to Monterrey, Mexico and other overseas locations if they expect to continue receiving contracts.

GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welch has bluntly defined his idea of globalization this way: “Ideally, you would have every plant you own on a barge.” In other words, operate as a corporate economic power without ties to any nation, with freedom to move operations to any area of the world with the cheapest labor and fewest workers’ rights standards and environmental restrictions.

The pursuit of this strategy is seen in the elimination of 125,000 GE jobs in the United States since 1986. As the corporation has abandoned communities like Schenectady and Syracuse, N.Y. and Rome, Ga., it has continued to be among the leading recipients of federal and state tax breaks and other forms of “corporate welfare.”

Such an example by the world’s wealthiest corporation is a dangerous one. You can be sure that other corporations are waiting to see if GE can get away with its destructive, greed-driven approach, and are ready to copy it.

One lesson from the recent WTO protest in Seattle is that globalization is provoking a mounting interest in questions over corporate responsibility and in standards to protect the rights and conditions of workers around the world. And these are issues of concern not only to working people and their unions in North America but in every country.

The challenge for organized labor is to see to it that enlightened companies like SBC become the model for the new economy, not those that are engaged in a “race to the bottom.”