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AT&T Pact Opens the Door to Organize TCI
Even while AT&T prepares to wrestle with regulators and some investors over the company's late June decision to acquire Tele-Communications Inc. in a $48 billion stock deal, TCI workers are looking forward to a fairer playing field when it comes to winning union representation.
CWA Vice President Jim Irvine of the communications and technologies bargaining unit says that AT&T labor relations personnel agree with CWA that "wall-to-wall" organizing provisions in the 1998 union contract will apply.
The settlement provides for immediate consent elections overseen by an impartial umpire for unorganized units at AT&T, as well as future acquisitions, Irvine said. The four-year pact, the longest ever with the telecommunications giant, was recently ratified. CWA currently represents 48,000 AT&T employees.
If the umpire should determine that AT&T management failed to live up to its neutrality pledge, then future recognition will be based solely on majority cardcheck with no elections required. This provision of the contract becomes effective next Jan. 1, Irvine said.
Meanwhile, analysts were closely following AT&T's plan to acquire the nation's largest cable operator. TCI, with 37,000 employees, has strategic partnerships that include @Home, a high speed Internet service, Time Warner, Cablevision and InterMedia Partners.
Speculation continues to center on the synergy between AT&T and TCI that could result in a bundling of such services as cable TV, high speed Web surfing, and local and long distance phone service. One of the major hopes of AT&T executives is that by buying TCI the company will be able to crack open the $100 billion-a-year local phone business.
CWA Vice President Jim Irvine of the communications and technologies bargaining unit says that AT&T labor relations personnel agree with CWA that "wall-to-wall" organizing provisions in the 1998 union contract will apply.
The settlement provides for immediate consent elections overseen by an impartial umpire for unorganized units at AT&T, as well as future acquisitions, Irvine said. The four-year pact, the longest ever with the telecommunications giant, was recently ratified. CWA currently represents 48,000 AT&T employees.
If the umpire should determine that AT&T management failed to live up to its neutrality pledge, then future recognition will be based solely on majority cardcheck with no elections required. This provision of the contract becomes effective next Jan. 1, Irvine said.
Meanwhile, analysts were closely following AT&T's plan to acquire the nation's largest cable operator. TCI, with 37,000 employees, has strategic partnerships that include @Home, a high speed Internet service, Time Warner, Cablevision and InterMedia Partners.
Speculation continues to center on the synergy between AT&T and TCI that could result in a bundling of such services as cable TV, high speed Web surfing, and local and long distance phone service. One of the major hopes of AT&T executives is that by buying TCI the company will be able to crack open the $100 billion-a-year local phone business.