GDIT Workers Featured at Netroots Nation

Workers from General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), who are joining together to gain a voice in their workplace with CWA, were featured earlier this month at the Netroots Nation conference in New Orleans in a nationally livestreamed Worker Town Hall with Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). GDIT is the largest call center contractor with the federal government.
 
With the help of CWA, GDIT workers filed a $100 million dollar wage theft complaint – the largest in history – against GDIT.

"I'm now getting paid almost the same wages at GDIT to talk people through life-changing decisions, and to give them highly technical, complicated information about the healthcare they need," said Don Freeman, a customer service representative at the GDIT call center in Hattiesburg, Miss., who formerly worked at Walmart as a sales associate. "That just doesn't seem right. I'm tired of having to decide each week whether I'm going to buy food or put gas in my car."

Cherie Terhark works at the GDIT call center in Bogalusa, La., helping people find the information they need about health insurance through the Affordable Care Act or Medicare. She said that her job was stressful and made harder by harassment from management. "We get a lot of pressure from management to keep taking calls, and when we try to take the time, or send our caller onto the advanced resolution center, we're reprimanded."

"I've been organizing with my coworkers since I found out we were misclassified by GDIT and being underpaid." said James Finnemore, who also works as a customer service representative at the Hattiesburg call center. "In Mississippi, a state that isn't known for supporting unions, we are growing."
 
Rep. Ryan noted the role that unions like CWA play in strengthening communities. "If you're a worker, unions are there, and I think they are one of the best paths for us to reclaim the middle class here in the United States."

"I know that if we could be members of CWA, we could stand up to management and they wouldn't be able to get away with harassing and demeaning us," said Terhark. "They wouldn't be able to continue to misclassify us and pay us so little that we struggle to get by. That's why I'm working hard to make sure that we have a union."
 
Watch the full town hall here.