Telecom News: Training Gets Members Mobilizing for 2009 AT&T Bargaining

CWA members at AT&T are looking ahead to contract negotiations in early 2009 and training is underway in nearly every CWA district to help put together an action plan for successful negotiations next year.

The AT&T training is a project of the Strategic Industries Fund. Local activists and leaders come together to discuss changes at AT&T and in the telecom industry that affect bargaining; how enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act will help members build bargaining power; why national health care reform is the key to maintaining quality benefits and how to build support for mobilization. CWA represents about 170,000 members at AT&T.

Districts 6 and 13 already have started rolling out training sessions for AT&T local activists, and District 4 has been combining its health care and AT&T training. The goal is to train at least 10 percent of the membership that works at AT&T, with the majority of training completed by the end of September.

Ed Pinkelman, District 6 area director and coordinator for the AT&T training, said members liked the training, "especially younger members who weren't aware of some of the problems we're likely to face in bargaining."

The district is moving fast on training and has 12 trainers covering five states, with the goal of training at least 3,400 members, he said. The information in the workbooks is perfect for members because it helps them see what we're up against, especially when it comes to health care and retiree issues, he said.

Gwen Spikes, president of Local 6139, said the AT&T training held in Beaumont, Texas, already was showing results. "Members were energized and excited by what they learned and they loved having a chance to voice an opinion of their own," she said.

The very next day, participants were sharing information and the number of red shirts on Thursday had grown, she said.

In District 4, Dave Wilson, president of Local 4700, serves as health care SIF coordinator and the Indiana representative for the district's AT&T Mobilization Committee. He said combined AT&T and health care/Employee Free Choice training in Indiana is "getting a very good response. Members are very interested and we've also had a lot of success in signing up new COPE activists at the same time."

For AT&T members, the session "reinforces what people think, that it will be a difficult round of negotiations next year," Wilson said. Still, participants get documentation, real information that they share in the workplace. "We're giving them a road map to use with coworkers so that our members are prepared for any eventuality."

The AT&T training has been coordinated with Jane Philips, Local 4900, and Sharon Smith-Vaughn, Local 4998, who are rolling out the health care/Employee Free Choice training in District 4.

The training helps participants look at how AT&T is changing — shifting from a land line based company to high profit wireless and broadband — and what this means for CWA members in terms of jobs, health care, retiree benefits and the future.