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After Long, Hard Struggle, Workers Win at Comcast |
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For five long and difficult years, workers in Chicago and Pittsburgh struggled against Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, in an epic battle to gain a first contract. And they won through determination, innovative tactics and strong community support.
The latest example of that support was clear Thursday when more than 100 religious leaders from across the country traveled to Philadelphia to deliver a letter to Comcast’s annual shareholders’ meeting requesting the board establish a corporate code of conduct. The letter from the Religious Leaders for Justice at Comcast came one day after political and religious groups held a prayer vigil in Philadelphia to highlight the workers’ fight to gain a fair deal.
Over the past year, nearly 500 Comcast workers who belong to two unions in Chicago and Pittsburgh have gained first contacts this year after fighting off long corporate campaigns to break the union and to deny them a collective bargaining contract.
In the past three weeks alone, some 350 technical workers represented by Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 13000 ratified contracts at three facilities in western Pennsylvania.
In the Chicago area, members of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 21 overwhelmingly approved a new agreement on Sept. 25, 2005, slamming the door on the company’s drive to decertify the bargaining unit. The three-year agreement, ratified by 94 percent, includes annual raises of nearly 3 percent, stronger job security language and fairer disciplinary procedures.
Ron Kastner, president and business manager of Local 21, says from the start, Comcast sought to decertify the bargaining unit to send a message to unrepresented Comcast workers in Chicago that unions were ineffective against Comcast’s clout. “We told Comcast to pay attention to the fighting history of this bargaining unit, but they ignored us,” he adds.
IBEW President Edwin Hill had this to say:
The members of Local 21 have written themselves prominently into the history of the IBEW. Our brothers and sisters have proven yet again that corporate arrogance and the abuse of power cannot defeat organized workers
who tap into the deep roots of support in their surrounding communities.
In Pittsburgh, the workers first joined the union in 2001 when they were employed by A&T Broadband, which merged with Comcast a year later. Comcast has aggressively fought workers’ efforts to form unions since the merger. The company promoted a campaign to decertify the union in 2002. When that failed, Comcast refused to bargain over a first contract.
The company tried to drive a wedge among the Pittsburgh workers by giving nonunion employees raises while pointedly not giving raises to union members, says Frank Snyder, the national coordinator of cable organizing for the AFL-CIO Organizing Department.
But the workers saw through the company’s scheme and persevered to win their own contract. Says Marge Krueger, CWA’s chief negotiator in Pittsburgh:
I felt it was a privilege to work with people like that. I’ve been doing organizing for 20 years, and to see people just keep fighting and fighting—even though the company tried to beat them down so much—I just can’t say enough positive things about them.
Comcast also fired a worker in Oakland, Calif., for speaking out at a public hearing on Comcast’s violations of labor laws. Another worker in Montgomery County, Md., and two workers in Pittsburgh were fired for supporting a union, according to arbitrators and a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge.
As a result of the Chicago and Pittsburgh union workers’ success, more Comcast employees are inquiring about joining a union, Snyder says. Today, the only unionized Comcast facility without a contract is in Farmer’s Branch, Texas.
Two years ago, the AFL-CIO committed to helping the members of CWA and IBEW in their fight at Comcast. Since then the federation has provided personnel and strategic planning to the struggle. The partnership of the federation and the unions has been the key to the victories, CWA President Larry Cohen says.
In Chicago and Pittsburgh, the unions developed a wide range of innovative tactics to counter Comcast’s pattern of trying to derail contract talks by promoting decertification votes and then dragging out negotiations as long as possible.
The workers used their strong ties to their community to build support. They held town hall meetings that routinely drew hundreds of people to hear about Comcast’s low wages and anti-worker actions such as firing workers for trying to form unions. It was easy to get people to come out, says Snyder, because “nobody likes their cable company. People wanted to know why their cable bills were going up faster than the rate of inflation and Comcast was making record profits but was paying its workers less than other telecom companies.”
The workers also joined with AFL-CIO constituency groups such as the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and the Coalition of Labor Union Women to conduct informational campaigns and build coalitions with women and people of color.
In Pittsburgh, the community also got involved by joining a campaign to “Give Comcast Your Two Cents Worth.” Whenever union supporters paid their cable bills, they would insert two pennies and a sticker backing the union members. The pennies prevented the envelopes from going through the automatic letter openers and scanners and forced Comcast to have to open each one and see the union stickers.
Public officials joined the effort as well. Democratic Govs. Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania and Rod Blagojevich of Illinois each called Comcast executives to urge them to negotiate with the unions. In cities and towns across Pennsylvania, the unions provided T-shirts for pro-worker public officials to wear whenever they met with or attended functions sponsored by Comcast.
The cable company’s executives couldn’t even escape the workers’ concerns when they went on vacation. Union members would show up at the executive’s summer homes with the giant inflatable rat and carrying signs demanding justice.
“This is not about the money,” Snyder says. “Employees all over the cable industry are overworked while the companies are making record profits. These workers had the courage to stand up and stay with it.”
The Comcast workers’ struggles demonstrate the need for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, says AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff.
In April 2005, a bipartisan coalition reintroduced the act, which would strengthen workers’ freedom to choose union representation by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of employees signs authorization cards. It also would provide for mediation and arbitration of first-contract disputes and authorize stronger penalties for violation of labor law when workers seek to form unions.
Even though some 57 million workers say they would join a union, according to research by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, employers like Comcast routinely mount vicious anti-union campaigns and use the federal union elections process to coerce workers to vote against the union.
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