WASHINGTON-The Communications Workers of America will make unionization of wireless workers a priority when negotiations begin in two weeks on a new collective bargaining agreement with Bell Atlantic Corp., a strategy by organized labor that appears designed to take advantage of the high visibility of Verizon Wireless as the top mobile phone operator and of Bell Atlantic-GTE Corp. as the nation’s largest telecom firm.
“That [wireless unionization] will be part of the negotiations,” said Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for CWA.
At the same time, Johnson acknowledged that unionizing workers of Bell Atlantic affiliates will be an uphill battle. “Organizing in wireless has been a big fight,” she said.
In fact, very few wireless workers nationwide are unionized. With the tight job market for skilled and savvy technical, marketing and management personnel, fast-growing wireless firms offer attractive benefits packages to retain prized employees.
“Union representation is completely unnecessary,” said Jim Gerace, a Verizon spokesman. “There’s no value added.”
While unionization is not prohibited at Verizon, Johnson said there are jurisdictional questions that need to be resolved.
Bargaining between CWA and Bell Atlantic will begin June 26, but already posturing has begun. The current contract ends on Aug. 5.
CWA, whose contract with Bell Atlantic cover 71,000 workers in 13 states, has been attempting to energize its membership in recent months. Around 200 local union officers met mid-March in Atlantic City, N.J., to craft goals for upcoming negotiations.
In addition to wireless unionization, CWA said it wants improvements in wages and pensions; relief for customer service representatives and operators who face high levels of job stress and mandatory overtime; greater access for workers to the new jobs of the company’s new subsidiaries and improved labor relations with Bell Atlantic.
“In today’s highly competitive telecommunications industry, it’s a highly skilled, experienced workforce that makes the critical difference and provides the competitive edge companies want and need,” said CWA President Morton Bahr. “This means that Bell Atlantic must reject the adversarial labor relations approach it has been following in some venues and replace it with real partnership and respect.”
Bahr contrasted what he called Bell Atlantic’s “command-and-control” labor polices to “CWA’s positive partnership with GTE.”
In a report to members last month, CWA warned that “low road labor policies create poor morale and threaten the competitive edge for Verizon.”
CWA, among other things, criticized Bell Atlantic for expending energy to fight wireless unionization instead of improving marketing of new digital services.
CWA, claiming Bell Atlantic tried to bust the union after wireless technicians in New York City embraced organized labor, lambasted the telecom giant for omitting local service from a promotional package that includes satellite TV, high-speed Internet and wireless service and for making the bundled service available to consumers only by a special 1-800 telephone number.
“Such marketing decisions don’t make any business sense-and that’s because Bell Atlantic doesn’t have a business reason for doing it this way. It’s about union avoidance,” stated CWA in the four-page report to members.
With wireless and Internet services being the fastest growing and least unionized among the Baby Bells and other telecommunications companies, organized labor is expected to aggressively push to expand its membership in coming years.
“It doesn’t surprise me, given the fact they have expressed interest in making inroads in wireless before,” said Gerace.
Having become so big, Bell Atlantic and Verizon face the prospect of a highly publicized and prolonged contract fight with CWA. Verizon is particularly vulnerable because-unlike Bell Atlantic corporate-it exists in a very competitive wireless market.
The potential benefits for CWA are huge. Any concessions on wireless and other issues extracted from Bell Atlantic could give CWA leverage in contract negotiations in 2001 with SBC Communications Inc., U S West Inc. and BellSouth Corp., all of which have major wireless properties. The Bell Atlantic-GTE merger is expected to get final approval from the Federal Communications Commission by the end of the month.
CWA opposes the proposed merger between WorldCom Inc. and Sprint Corp.
