SBC Wireless Nears Wall-to-Wall in Arkansas Card-check Extended to 3,000 Potential Members

SBC Wireless Nears Wall-to-Wall in Arkansas Card-check Extended to 3,000 Potential Members


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Ninety-five SBC Wireless workers in Jonesboro, Little Rock and Searcy, Ark. have gained CWA membership through a card-check campaign involving all seven of the state's locals. It is the 20th card-check victory in CWA District 6 since November 1997 and the 24th since card-check and neutrality was negotiated for SBC and subsidiaries there in March of that year.

Card-check recognition allows workers to become union members when a neutral third party verifies that 50 percent plus one of their number have signed cards authorizing the union to represent them.

Judy Strange, president of CWA Local 6505, Jonesboro, and Alma Diemer president of Local 6507, Little Rock, initiated the recent campaign about a year ago.

"With the majority of the employees being younger," said Diemer, "we had to educate them as to the advantages of a union and what CWA could do for them."

For help they turned to Mary Ann Sims, secretary-treasurer of Local 6502. Sims and colleagues in northwest Arkansas had already been successful in getting Wireless units certified in Fort Smith, Fayetteville and Russellville, and had negotiated a first contract. Leaving behind her husband and three school-age daughters, Sims moved into a hotel room in Little Rock in October 1998.

"I was gone until two days before Christmas, but my family understood how important it was for me and for the union," Sims said.

Supported by CWA Representative Rita Voorheis, District 6 Organizing Coordinator Sandy Rusher and additional CWA staff, local organizers got busy. They called potential members on the telephone and set up after-work get-togethers at local restaurants. Sims and others explained that the new units in northeast and central Arkansas would be rolled into the existing contract through March 2001, with guaranteed raises, benefits and working conditions. After that, one contract would be negotiated for all Wireless in the state.

Local 6507 Stewards Mark Lovelace and Catalina Batista put in long hours on the drive, said Voorheis, assisted by Local 6505 Secretary-Treasurer Jackie Fields, Local 6508 President John Graham and Local 6502 President Gary Gray. Locals 6500, 6503 and 6573 also lent support.

Sims said there is only one Wireless location in Arkansas - El Dorado - yet to be organized. And, with Wireless nearly wall-to-wall, management in her part of the state has become more comfortable with and accepting of the union.

Also in February, CWA District 6 Vice President Ben Turn, who negotiated the original card-check and neutrality agreement for Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, announced that card-check rights will now be extended to 3,000 SBC wireless workers in New York and Massachusetts (District 1), Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia (District 2), Illinois and Indiana (District 4), and Delaware and Pennsylvania (District 13).

Organizing Roundup Organizing Victories Elsewhere:

CWA Local 1126 won a National Labor Relations Board election Jan. 29 for 8 GTE technicians in Rome, N.Y.

CWA Local 14200 has won an election at the Rapid Response Center, part of the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. The vote was 10-3 for unit of 17 procurement workers.