The Pace of Bargaining

The Pace of Bargaining - by Christina Huggins

The Union has known for some time now that the goal of most major Corporations in this country is to get rid of Unions.  AT&T is no exception.  A couple of years back, some high level Company documents were accidentally posted on an unsecured web site that detailed a plan to reduce occupational salaries and minimize the Union's influence.  We are seeing that goal play out now in the greedy, unreasonable attack on the Union by AT&T at all 5 Bargaining tables.  They are determined to take back the hard-fought benefits achieved over the past 30 years.  They have adopted a cynical and manipulative strategy to try and exploit the economic crisis to take from those who enabled them to make thier $12.87 Billion in profit last year.  May 1st is International Workers' Day.  That holiday began in the 1880s in the United States, with the fight for an eight-hour work day.  Workers were being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day at the time.  A three-day general strike in Chicago led to the notorious Haymarket Square Massacre.  A memorial to those workers who were shot by police remains to this day.  We are sure that Corporations would love to get rid of the eight-hour day again.  Just look at how they are treating their own lower and mid-level managers.

Why is the work that corporate executives perform so much more valuable than ours?  Why should their work command salaries in the millions per year while they try to take our medical benefits from us?  These ideas are the same that resisted the eight hour day; that fostered child labor.  Our future and our children's future is at stake here.  We must not let them take back the fruits of our labor while they enjoy excessive personal profit.

Some of you are frustrated with what is perceived as the slow pace of bargaining.  What is really going on here is that the Union is operating strategically; measuring our options.  We will continue to mobilize internally and externally to place pressure on the Company until they come to the Bargaining Table showing respect and recognizing the value of our work.

The Alameda Labor Council has vowed to help us to enlist all the various other Unions, Elected Officials and the Faith Based Community in our struggle to achieve a fair and reasonable Contract.  And your mobilizations have had an effect: from the singing of "Solidarity Forever" in a large group, standing up several times a day and holding the "I am ready to strike" signs, working to the rule, the black balloons on every chair, practice picketing and many other things being done at the Pleasanton and Sacramento locations; in Oakland and other cities the refusal by Technicians to work overtime, the large demonstrations at Webster St., the grievances being filed, all of these things have been noted by the Company.  We will strike if and when we are ready and we won't be notifying the Company!  Keep fighting the good fight!  Our future, our childrens future is worth it!  They say, "Take back."  We say, "Fight back!"

The eight-hour day was realized for many working people in the U.S. in 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 U.S. Code Chapter 8) under the New Deal made it a legal day's work throughout the nation.