Speed Matters: Local 1103 a Model for Grassroots Activism

Through a combination of old-fashioned workplace discussions and information age communications, Local 1103 in Portchester, N.Y., enlisted 10 percent of its 1,500 members as part of a "Speed Matters Action Committee," or SMAC, in just a couple of months.

That still-growing committee is now preparing to lobby for a bill to allow CWA employers like Verizon to compete on equal footing with the cable companies in rolling out high-speed Internet services in New York.

"1103 and the SMACers are awesome!  It's great to see this level of participation and activism," said President Larry Cohen in a posting on the local's website.  "I am confident that with this kind of leadership we can build awareness and move this issue up on the national priority list."

Local leaders realize that promoting high-speed Internet service means jobs – and members understand, too, when the issues are explained, said Local Business Agent Joe Mayhew.  "We're an Internet economy.  Sooner or later, it's going to be the haves and have nots – who has broadband and who doesn't.  We need to bring high-speed service to everyone across the state, including rural areas.  Without it we're going to lose jobs."

Local 1103 set up an entire area of its website, www.cwa1103.org, complete with blog, to promote SMAC and linked it to CWA's campaign site www.speedmatters.org, where CWA is promoting a broadband speed test and signing up supporters.  "In the first 14 days of SMAC, we found that 44 percent of all the people in District 1 who took the test were out of our local and we ended up being 10 percent of all the tests taken across the country," Mayhew said.  "So we realized that we had something going."

Mayhew and fellow Business Agent Ron Mageri have been traveling around to worksites talking up the program and collecting e-mail addresses as they build an electronic action network and send out regular bulletins.

SMAC activists will be supporting District 1's campaign for legislation to establish a Broadband Development Authority that would increase broadband penetration in underserved areas, and also provide for statewide cable franchising.

Any CWA local can link its website to www.speedmatters.org. Just visit the home page and click on the box headlined, "Promote the Cause."  If additional assistance is required, call Beth Allen at CWA headquarters, (202) 434-9506.