CWA President Claude Cummings Jr.’s Statement on DirecTV’s Acquisition of Dish Network

Communications Workers of America President Claude Cummings Jr. issued the following statement in response to today’s announcement that DirecTV plans to acquire Dish Network.

Dish Network is one of the most anti-union employers in the entire telecommunications industry. Even when workers have been able to successfully overcome Dish’s illegal union-busting tactics to form a union, the company has refused to negotiate collective bargaining agreements. I have personal experience with this. In Texas, where I served as CWA District 6 Vice President, a group of technicians who had organized to join CWA in 2010 faced twelve years of illegal firings and intimidation before they were finally able to negotiate a fair contract—the only group in the entire country to ever do so at Dish.

DirecTV, on the other hand, has an agreement with CWA to allow workers to freely and fairly choose whether or not to join a union. Since this agreement went into effect in 2016, thousands of workers have joined CWA, and our union currently represents nearly 3,000 technicians and customer service representatives there.

We will be taking a close look at the impact of DirecTV’s acquisition of Dish Network on our members at DirecTV and the industry as a whole and working with DirecTV’s management to ensure that all workers at the company continue to have a voice on the job and strong union contracts.

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About CWA: The Communications Workers of America represents working people in telecommunications, customer service, media, airlines, health care, public service and education, manufacturing, tech, and other fields.

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