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Army of Activists Organizes 6,000 Into CWA

Workplace activity by hundreds of CWA supporters in the Connecticut Union of Telephone Workers has produced one of the largest private sector affiliation vote victories anywhere in the country this year.

It came at the end of a hotly contested three-month campaign, as 6,300 CUTW members at Southern New England Telephone overwhelmingly chose CWA as a merger partner, in mail balloting which ended July 2. The results released by the American Arbitration Association: 3202 votes for CWA, 866 for the IBEW and 171 to remain an independent union.

CUTW members formed an affiliation committee, talked one on one with co-workers and allowed their photos and personal endorsements to be used in campaign materials. More than 1,600 signed onto a statement urging their co-workers to choose CWA for a stronger union, better contract and protection against possible downsizing.

"We believe that union strength comes from membership education and mobilization," CWA President Morton Bahr told CUTW members at affiliation forums and worksite visits. "We encourage our locals to get members more involved in the contract negotiating process - not keep them uninformed or on the sidelines. The CUTW-CWA Affiliation Committee is just the kind of grassroots network that CUTW needs to get a good contract from SNET this year."

Bahr said CWA will back the new affiliate with the full strength and solidarity of its 630,000 members.

Said CWA District 1 Vice President Larry Mancino, "We welcome CUTW to our ranks and pledge to commit the necessary resources to help its members achieve their goals."

Eye-Opening Merger
When SBC Communications launched its $4.4 billion take-over bid for SNET, still subject to approval by regulators, CUTW leaders and members, long proud of their independence, had to consider: What would be the best strategy for dealing with a much larger and more powerful employer? History had taught them some tough lessons.

In 1984, when CUTW was part of the 40,000-member Telecommunications International Union, its members voted against a merger with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. In subsequent years, they watched as most former TIU affiliates in New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware joined forces with CWA.

Recent rounds of CUTW bargaining with SNET have seen telephone workers in Connecticut fall behind their counterparts elsewhere. SNET technicians, operators and service reps, hired on the short end of two-tier arrangements, pay more for their medical benefits, work for lower salaries and have fewer job rights than colleagues. Top craft pay in wealthy Fairfield County, Conn, has fallen drastically. Bell Atlantic technicians serving Greenwich, Conn., earn $200 to $300 more than SNET techs throughout the state.

CWA Representative Rick Martini first made contact with disgruntled SNET workers in Danbury in the late 1980s and watched these developments unfold. CWA Local 1103, its President Bob McCracken and Connecticut staff representative Lou Sarno developed ties with CUTW plant locals adjacent to New York communities served by Bell Atlantic.

But representatives of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers were also busy courting top officials of the CUTW. The stage was set for a clash.

Two Camps Emerge
Last winter, as news of the take-over bid broke, CUTW Plant Local 1 President John Miceli and Plant Local 2 President Pete Hoyt got busy.

"I started petitioning for CWA affiliation and signing people up for our committee to make CUTW more accountable to the membership," Hoyt says. "It was obvious that CWA had far more bargaining clout with SBC and was already trying to help us deal with the company about the impact of the merger."

Martini, in March, arranged for CUTW's nine-member, statewide executive board, headed by President Dan Keating, to join Bahr at a meeting in San Antonio with SBC Chairman Ed Whitacre, to state their concerns about job security and keeping SNET bargaining unit work in the state.

But after returning home, a majority of the executive board - joined by most of the CUTW's 19 local presidents - declared support for merging with IBEW.

Realizing that IBEW represents only a handful of SBC workers, compared to CWA's 75,000 in California, Nevada and other Southwestern states, Keating, CUTW Plant Vice President Jamie Haynes and Western Area Vice President Paul Hongo voted against the IBEW endorsement. But the main opposition came from the grassroots committee launched in late March with an open letter from Hoyt and Miceli.

Within weeks, hundreds of SNET workers around the state signed onto the CUTW-CWA Affiliation Committee and volunteered to organize co-workers. Hundreds, in red T-shirts, also turned out for affiliation forums in April, to hear Bahr or Mancino debate IBEW Vice President Frank Carroll, a former business manager of a Connecticut electricians' local.

CUTW members rejected claims by Carroll and other IBEW representatives that they would lose their autonomy if they joined CWA. Bahr argued persuasively that affiliation with CWA would enable the two unions to coordinate bargaining and help SNET workers get the full benefit of CWA's April contract settlement with SBC in seven other states.

Teamwork Prevails
"This was a great come-from-behind victory," said CWA Organizing Director Larry Cohen. "Much of the credit goes to the incredible team of people who worked tirelessly to build a network of CWA supporters in more than 65 workplaces.

"They developed issues, identified rank-and-file leaders, and did effective outreach to all segments of the CUTW membership - technicians, operators, service reps, clericals, and other headquarters employees like the SNET engineers.

"Our organizing team came from a variety of backgrounds, including the public and private sector, Bell Atlantic and SBC," Cohen said. "We succeeded because we organized off our existing membership base and used a worker-to-worker approach. This is what CWA organizing is all about."

Aiding the pro-CWA committee were District 1 Organizing Coordinators Ed Sabol and Jeff Lacher, CWA Representative Steve Early, Research Economist Ken Peres and activists from CWA plant, operator and commercial marketing locals. Support came from Beth Boland, Local 1110; Dennis Trainor and Jeff Halperin, Local 1101; Chris Morley, Local 1120; Mary Buck and Vice President Anna Egner, Local 1400; and Lourdes Delgado, Local 1105. Helping in the early stages of the campaign were CWA Organizer Andrea deMajewski, Local 9423 Secretary-Treasurer Stephanie Olvera, Local 1400 President Melissa Morin, Local 1105 President Kathy Ciner and District 1 CWA Representative Lynn Buckley.

It was obvious their work had paid off when hundreds of CUTW members came to work on June 4 in red CWA T-shirts and armbands to display their affiliation choice, demand job security from SBC and oppose further contract concessions at SNET. Volunteers from CWA Locals 1101, 1105 and 1110 helped leaflet during this statewide "Day of Action."

Ready to Bargain
"Our affiliation committee members have already begun to function as workplace mobilizers," said Martini. "Their exclusive focus between now and Aug. 8 will be on getting a good contract."

CWA organizers have already distributed a contract survey and conducted mobilization training for 50 key activists. And affiliation supporters have also presented testimony before state regulators who must approve an SBC-SNET merger.

With the continuing involvement of rank-and-file activists like SNET installer Art Perales and central office technician Paula Merriam, the joint CUTW-CWA contract campaign is bound to succeed.

"Affiliation will send a clear message to management that we don't want any more of this two-tier stuff in our contract," Perales said.

"Affiliation activity has really opened things up in the CUTW," said Merriam. "Members are speaking freely and openly now. We're not going to be intimidated - by the company or the union."

"It's only common sense for telephone workers in Connecticut to be finally getting together with the biggest telecommunications union in the country."
- Fred Thompson
Plant Local 4
New Haven


"Affiliation activity has really opened things up in the CUTW. Members are speaking freely and openly now. We're not going to be intimidated any longer."
- Paula Merriam
CUTW Plant Local 5
Danielson


"We've got to put the membership's interests first. We've got to be far more responsive to the concerns of the rank-and-file, which overwhelmingly backs CWA."
- Jamie Haynes
CUTW Vice President Plant Department


"I've worked for SNET for 20 years - the company is certainly changing and it's time that our union changed as well."
- Laurie Easton
CUTW Plant Local 3
New Haven