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Three Steps for Union-Building: Train, Organize, Legislate

Executive Vice President Larry Cohen is advocating a three-pronged approach to building CWA: training for the jobs of the future, organizing the jobs of today and working for legislation to bring collective bargaining rights to every American worker.

"We continue to learn from each other that our strategies work when we work hard to use them, uniting worksite representation, organizing and political action," he said, speaking at CWA's annual convention.

As jobs in traditional telephone companies continue to decline, he urged members to take advantage of union-bargained education benefits to train for jobs in emerging technologies such as Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP allows for voice communication through special handsets attached to computers.

Cohen said more than 200 service representatives and technicians enrolled in the CWA/NETT Academy in August to study VoIP, and 13 CWA locals provide lab facilities in their union halls.

David Rangel, a member of Local 9421 told delegates how CWA/NETT courses helped him land a better job at SBC.

Two semesters into CWA/NETT's CCNA, Cisco Certified Network Associate course, Rangel learned of a chance to transfer to SBC's new Ethernet Network Operations Center in Sacramento.

"In order to qualify, you needed to be CCNA-certified or have Cisco router knowledge through a certified course," Rangel said. "I was able to apply because I was participating in the CWA/NETT program. Soon after, I was given the transfer to the E-NOC. Now I am Cisco CCNA certified, and I am receiving top craft wages."

More details about the training program are online at ga.cwa-union.org. Click on the CWA/NETT logo.

President's Annual Award
Cohen presented awards and a $1,000 stipend to 21 locals that each organized 100 workers or more in the past year.

To talk about the union's top organizing achievement, he introduced a New Mexico state worker who told how she and colleagues used the CWA triangle - organizing, representation and political action - to bring more than 3,000 members into the union.

Robin Gould worked at the state museum in Albuquerque 15 years ago when a CWA organizer called her at home and asked her to take a stand to form a union. She joined with others to organize a number of state agencies and in 1992 lobbied successfully for the state's first collective bargaining law.

"But with only 20 percent membership, our effectiveness was weak," Gould said. "And, because of this, we endured eight years of an anti-union governor who made it his business to 'sunset' our collective bargaining law. In 1999, we lost our contract, we lost our representation rights and, in a word, we lost our union."

In the years following - Gould calls them "the dark years" - New Mexico state workers lost overtime, had no raises for over two years, endured pay-for-performance reviews and suffered more terminations than in the past 30 years.

In 2002, Bill Richardson, secretary of energy in the Clinton administration, announced his candidacy to become New Mexico's governor. He pledged to support card-check recognition and a new collective bargaining law.

Gould and other state workers eagerly supported his candidacy. CWA President Morton Bahr said Local 7011 provided so many volunteers that Richardson affectionately referred to them as "my campaign staff." Their effort paid off and Gov. Richardson signed a new collective bargaining law with no sunset clause.

Under the banner of the State Employee Alliance, SEA-CWA, District 7 again organized all the agencies it had lost, and more. Bahr cited the hard work of Organizing Coordinators Kevin Mulligan, Jana Smith-Carr and Rolando Figueroa, organizers from Locals 7011, 7019, 7026, 7037, 7704 and 7777, and a statewide organizing committee of more than 300 workers who used every tool from personal contacts to the Internet to rebuild their union.

Bahr recognized their achievement with the President's Annual Award, CWA's highest honor for union-building.

Gould said SEA-CWA has 65 percent membership across the board and is working to organize another 1,500 workers. "We just finished our first contract and are in the process of ratifying that agreement that recoups all of the losses we suffered during the dark years," she said.

Special Recognition
Turning to Comcast, which provides cable TV to 40 percent of American homes, Cohen portrayed the company as an evil corporate giant that has fought unionization for a decade. He called it a prime example of why America needs a collective bargaining and organizing rights law such as the pending Employee Free Choice Act.

During the last decade, cable rates have risen at four times the rate of inflation, but that's not the only way Comcast is getting rich. The company gets millions of dollars in tax breaks for its Philadelphia headquarters. It also owns the Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia 76ers, and has exclusive rights to broadcast their games. Meanwhile, it's hired a former top staffer of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to run its union-busting campaigns.

"Imagine being a worker and CWA member at Comcast facing that type of corporate power," Cohen said, presenting two workers who lived it.

Curt Hess and Bruce Adams told delegates about organizing nearly 1,000 members in the Pittsburgh area between 2000 and 2002 with CWA's help. The company responded with harassment, stalling tactics in bargaining and, in 2003, a massive decertification drive.

Hess's South Hills office was the only one of five to win their second election, turning Comcast's mandatory employee meetings back on the company with tough questions and information of their own.

Marge Krueger, administrative assistant to District 13 Vice President Vince Maisano, and CWA Locals 13000, 13500 and 13550, were invaluable in the organizing drive, the workers said. Krueger's documentation of worker intimidation helped lead the National Labor Relations Board to order a third election.

While they are still struggling to win a first contract, 214 installers and technicians at Comcast's Corliss Street location and 115 workers at South Hills voted yet again to stick with the union.

For Krueger's decade-long work to bringing bargaining and organizing rights to Comcast workers, Bahr gave her an award of special recognition.

"You never gave up against huge odds and limitless corporate resources," Bahr said. "If Comcast is listening, if we need to, we will send Marge to every community in America - and she will go."