Organizing Round Up: 2,400 Cingular Workers, 400 Others Join CWA

It’s a happy new year for 2,400 Cingular workers in the continental United States and Hawaii who gained CWA recognition in December and early January, along with more than 400 other workers in the public and private sectors.

On Jan. 4, the AAA certified that a majority of the 1,288 customer service representatives at the company’s Orlando call center chose CWA representation. Three locals rose to the challenge of explaining to numerous young workers — students who will only work there until the complete their education — the importance of union representation.

Assisting the workers, from Local 3108, were organizers Renee Wigfall and Keith Harmon, members Horrace Dave Skinner, Deana Pruitt, Louis Smith, Steve Wisniewski and Debbie Matheny, President Pamela Lawson and Executive Vice President Sherri Keller.

Kendrick Benoit, from Local 3406, and Josh Denmark, a full-time organizer from Local 3106, provided critical support as workers got the final cards signed on the last of 60 days allowed under the Cingular neutrality agreement. Denmark is paid by the local with assistance from the national union, a practice that has boosted CWA’s organizing power at the local level (see Locals Thrive with Full Time Organizers).

Other new Cingular workers and locals that assisted them include:

• 400 retail sales, 67 locations in Pennsylvania (Local 13000).
• 182 retail sales, 27 locations in the state of Washington (Locals 7803, 7818 and 7901.)
• 158 retail sales, customer care, BMG and IT, 21 retail sales locations and a call center in Hawaii (Locals 9505 and 9415).
• 151 retail sales, 21 locations in Colorado (Locals 7717 and 7777).
• 89 retail sales, 27 locations in West Virginia (Locals 2001 and 2003).
• 51 retail sales, 11 locations in Iowa (Locals 7101, 7102, 7103, 7108 and 7110).
• 43 retail sales, 14 locations in Arkansas (Locals 6502, 6507 and 6508).
• 36 network technicians in Illinois (Local 4202).

As of early January, 15,952 former AT&T Wireless workers at Cingular have gained CWA representation. Overall, nearly 38,000 workers at Cingular belong to CWA. Another 6,000 former AT&T Wireless workers remain eligible.

During workers’ rights rallies across the country the week of Dec. 10, Cingular’s agreement to remain neutral in organizing drives and recognize units when a majority of workers sign cards was heralded by union leaders as one of the labor movement’s biggest success stories.

“Cingular is the most important organizing campaign in the last five years,” AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff told reporters.

Cingular spokeswoman Alexa Kaufman told the media that the company has “had a long-standing mutually beneficial relationship” with CWA. The Washington Times and the Philadelpia Inquirer were among newspapers that featured CWA’s Cingular campaign.

John Carey, a Langhorne, Pa., Cingular Wireless technician quoted in the Inquirer, said, “We never received any intimidation. We never received any threats.” His Norristown, Pa., unit joined CWA in 2004.

Other Victories
Other successful organizing drives around the union brought to CWA:

• 179 food service workers at the Camden (N.J.) Board of Education (Local 1079).
• 113 Delaware State Police civilian employees in Delaware (Local 13101) and 
• 93 master control staff, closed captioning editors, presentation editors, librarians, art directors, visual effects artists and others at Alliance Atlantis in Canada (TNG-CWA Local 30313).