266 City Workers Organize in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

After waiting for more than two years, city employees in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, are represented by CWA Local 6012. On Dec. 14, the Oklahoma Public Employees Relations Board certified that a majority of the workers had supported CWA in a card check election. 266 employees are included in the initial certification, and representation for employees in 13 disputed positions will be determined in a unit clarification.

The fight for representation began in earnest in 2004, when CWA, along with AFSCME, lobbied to pass collective bargaining legislation for Oklahoma's public workers. Unfortunately, during the political process, state workers and municipal employees in smaller towns were excluded from the legislation, and when the measure passed it covered only municipal employees in cities of over 35,000 population. CWA Local 6012 in Tulsa worked with city employees in Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa, to build majority support. By Nov. 2004, the week the legislation took effect, the workers gained majority support and filed for a wall-to-wall unit, excluding only fire fighters and police. Broken Arrow and several of the other 11 cities effected by the legislation immediately filed lawsuits and injunctions against the state's Public Employees Relations Board and moved forward with certification.

The case ultimately went before the state's supreme court where the justices ruled the legislation's exclusionary approach to certain municipal employees but not others as unconstitutional. Later, the supreme court this year reviewed its decision and determined that municipal employees could have collective bargaining rights. Throughout the several year process, local organizer Jon Kirby and the officers of CWA Local 6012 continued to work with the city employees who never given up," said District 6 Organizer Sandy Rusher.