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Alliance@IBM Votes to Form CWA Local
The Alliance@IBM, with more than 3,000 supporters nationwide, voted overwhelmingly to form a CWA local.
Alliance organizers tallied mail and online ballots on Sept. 14. The new local will be issued a charter and local number as soon as it has completed electing a governing council and local leaders.
“IBM workers are building a union, they want to take ownership of their movement, and they’re showing IBM they’re here to stay,” said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen, who was among the first to offer congratulations, along with CWA District 1 Vice President Larry Mancino.
Spurred by a company raid on their defined benefit pension plan two years ago, IBM employees formed the Alliance with the help of CWA. A highly skilled group of technical workers, they built support through online organizing while helping lead a successful campaign for pension plan regulation by Congress.
On Sept. 17 a U.S. District Court judge certified a CWA-backed class action suit against IBM, allowing proceedings to go forward on behalf of thousands of workers whose pensions will be affected by the company’s changes to its pension plan.
Part of a new wave of local unions organized without National Labor Relations Board certification, the new local will continue to fight for its members’ rights in the legislative arena and keep them well informed through its website, www.allianceibm.org.
And it will continue to enlist supporters and dues-paying members online, said Jimmy Tarlau, organizing coordinator at CWA headquarters.
A pioneer in online organizing, along with WashTech, CWA’s local for high-tech workers at Microsoft and other software innovators in the Pacific Northwest, the Alliance has not confined itself to recruitment via the web.
On Sept. 7, more than 125 workers turned out for a rally in Burlington, Vt., to protest schedules that eliminate overtime and shift differentials, amounting to an 18 percent pay cut for 3,700 workers at IBM’s Burlington facility.
Burlington Alliance leader Earl Mongeon explained the details of the pay cut and urged IBM workers to take a stand together against it by joining the Alliance in picketing the company, circulating petitions and forming committees for political activity, education, safety and health, and communication.
“I’m not here to destroy IBM,” Mongeon said. “I’m here to work with IBM and to help it prosper. But I want to be treated with respect and dignity for the hard work we do. I feel I can no longer work with a promise and a handshake like men of honor could years ago.”
Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), stood with the workers in Burlington, as he has in Congress, helping effect pension regulation that has given 35,000 IBM employees a choice between defined benefit and defined contribution plans, saving many of them thousands of dollars in future pension payments.
“American workers are becoming more and more concerned about the state of the economy, about their job security, and about their wages, and they are demanding that their employers treat them fairly,” Sanders said. “They are tired of companies all over this country being run on a principle of greed.”
Lee Conrad, from IBM’s Endicott, N.Y., facility told rally participants that, “Besides having a voice inside CWA,” forming a local will “send a strong message to the company that when IBM tries to cut benefits, they will have to deal with the Alliance and its members; that when an individual worker faces management, he or she will have the Alliance standing next to them.”
Alliance organizers tallied mail and online ballots on Sept. 14. The new local will be issued a charter and local number as soon as it has completed electing a governing council and local leaders.
“IBM workers are building a union, they want to take ownership of their movement, and they’re showing IBM they’re here to stay,” said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen, who was among the first to offer congratulations, along with CWA District 1 Vice President Larry Mancino.
Spurred by a company raid on their defined benefit pension plan two years ago, IBM employees formed the Alliance with the help of CWA. A highly skilled group of technical workers, they built support through online organizing while helping lead a successful campaign for pension plan regulation by Congress.
On Sept. 17 a U.S. District Court judge certified a CWA-backed class action suit against IBM, allowing proceedings to go forward on behalf of thousands of workers whose pensions will be affected by the company’s changes to its pension plan.
Part of a new wave of local unions organized without National Labor Relations Board certification, the new local will continue to fight for its members’ rights in the legislative arena and keep them well informed through its website, www.allianceibm.org.
And it will continue to enlist supporters and dues-paying members online, said Jimmy Tarlau, organizing coordinator at CWA headquarters.
A pioneer in online organizing, along with WashTech, CWA’s local for high-tech workers at Microsoft and other software innovators in the Pacific Northwest, the Alliance has not confined itself to recruitment via the web.
On Sept. 7, more than 125 workers turned out for a rally in Burlington, Vt., to protest schedules that eliminate overtime and shift differentials, amounting to an 18 percent pay cut for 3,700 workers at IBM’s Burlington facility.
Burlington Alliance leader Earl Mongeon explained the details of the pay cut and urged IBM workers to take a stand together against it by joining the Alliance in picketing the company, circulating petitions and forming committees for political activity, education, safety and health, and communication.
“I’m not here to destroy IBM,” Mongeon said. “I’m here to work with IBM and to help it prosper. But I want to be treated with respect and dignity for the hard work we do. I feel I can no longer work with a promise and a handshake like men of honor could years ago.”
Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), stood with the workers in Burlington, as he has in Congress, helping effect pension regulation that has given 35,000 IBM employees a choice between defined benefit and defined contribution plans, saving many of them thousands of dollars in future pension payments.
“American workers are becoming more and more concerned about the state of the economy, about their job security, and about their wages, and they are demanding that their employers treat them fairly,” Sanders said. “They are tired of companies all over this country being run on a principle of greed.”
Lee Conrad, from IBM’s Endicott, N.Y., facility told rally participants that, “Besides having a voice inside CWA,” forming a local will “send a strong message to the company that when IBM tries to cut benefits, they will have to deal with the Alliance and its members; that when an individual worker faces management, he or she will have the Alliance standing next to them.”