In My Opinion: A New Era, New Attitudes in Bargaining

CWA's settlement with AT&T adds to a string of "firsts" in this year's round of major telecommunications talks.
Following immediately behind our early settlements at SBC Communications for members at Southwestern Bell and Pacific Telesis (April CWA News), the AT&T agreement also came in well before expiration of the current contract.

And, with a four-year duration, this is the longest agreement we have ever negotiated with one of the major telecom companies.

A vital key to both settlements was an up-front agreement by the companies not to lay contract concession demands on the table, which set the stage for genuine bargaining - rather than confrontational posturing - and allowed talks to move swiftly. In a similar spirit, early negotiations began May 11 with Ameritech. Progress is being reported in early talks with Bell Atlantic on extension of the old NYNEX agreement, but little progress has been made at Bell Atlantic "South." No settlement will be reached unless both sets of talks are successful.

The other ingredient for successful bargaining was acknowledgment by SBC and AT&T that, by agreeing to wall-to-wall organizing provisions, they intend to grow and compete as union companies - an assurance we're demanding from every one of our employers.

Of course, contract settlements at these and other companies don't resolve all local problems that arise, and we must always remain vigilant in policing our contracts day to day.

For years we have been hearing about the "era of competition" in this industry. Well, finally, it is here. And SBC, AT&T and at least a few others are realizing that their success depends on providing quality service for customers with a highly skilled and productive workforce.

Spurring this realization, I think, was seeing their service decline - and complaints by regulators soar - after each of the companies engaged in an orgy of downsizing inspired by Wall Street a few years ago.

This excessive job-cutting, and increased pressures on the remaining workers, in turn caused morale problems and organized union protests in many areas, and has sometimes been a barrier to labor-management cooperative efforts.

Underscoring the fact that the winds of competition and big change are blowing hard was SBC's surprise announcement of a merger bid for Ameritech this month. SBC showed why it was eager to complete negotiations and build a foundation of good relations with its workers and the union - so it could lose no time in moving ahead to expand and grow the business.

For years, experts have been predicting that eventually there would be no more than perhaps three Bell companies and five or six large global players totally in telecommunications. It looks like we're now beginning to see that picture take shape, with speculation that other major deals are sure to come involving GTE, Sprint, AT&T and others.

We would welcome an SBC/ Ameritech alliance, for our experience shows we can trust SBC when it says the merger is about growth, not downsizing. That proved to be the case when Southwestern Bell combined with Pacific Telesis. At SBC, we have seen a growth of 7,000 CWA represented jobs in the past year and half, resulting both from added jobs and organizing gains at Southwestern Bell Wireless where we now have majority card check recognition.

This has provided added employment security to our SBC members.

There are no anti-competitive factors in such a merger since the companies are not in direct competition, and in fact as a larger entity would be in a better position to invest in offering a range of new, packaged information services.

This merger is in sharp contrast to the proposed MCI/WorldCom alliance, where the company plans to abandon the residential market, cut jobs and exploit what would be monopoly control - at least 60 percent - of the vital Internet backbone.

The seismic realignment that we have anticipated is now rolling out, quickly reshaping the industry, and we are seeing some of the impact in our negotiations so far.

There is no way to predict how other sets of talks will turn out. But clearly, the more enlightened managements have realized that cooperation rather than confrontation with their workers and CWA is the best path. They see that strategies of trying to contain or avoid the union in new growth areas can only lead to prolonged turmoil. And they are realizing that experienced, skilled and dedicated union workers truly are their competitive edge.