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SNET Members Win Major Pay Hike
By a three-to-one margin, members of Connecticut Union of Telephone Workers/CWA Local 1298 ratified a new contract at Southern New England Telephone that provides substantial wage increases and moves workers significantly closer to industry wage and benefit standards. The vote ended a 26-day strike at the Connecticut-based independent telephone company that began Aug. 23.
The 32-month agreement covers some 6,300 workers — operators, technicians, customer service representatives — and provides an across-the-board compounded wage increase of 11.4 percent, and additional equity pay raises that will boost annual earnings by 15.9 percent. Upgrades for workers in several job classifications, including installation and repair technicians, will boost wages even higher.
The agreement ends the company’s two-tier health plan that unfairly penalized newer workers. It eliminates all health care premium costs for both individual and family coverage by the end of the contract term for the point of service option, and expands dental, vision and other health care benefits.
The contract improves the cash balance account retirement plan, with increased benefits for longer-service workers, and increases that raise the base on which company contributions are determined. Limits on overtime hours, improvements in hours and holiday pay and new job security provisions are among other contract gains.
Solidarity, lots of hard work and the support of CWA members throughout the union made all the difference.
At a Hartford rally, CWA President Morton Bahr told SNET workers that "this strike is the focus of our entire union, especially the 100,000 members of SBC companies." Following up on a pledge of support made during the CWA convention, Vice Presidents Jeff Rechenbach, District 4, Ben Turn, District 6, and Tony Bixler, District 9, who headed the SBC Workers Solidarity Committee, joined thousands of SNET strikers at weekly mass rallies in Hartford, New Haven, Meriden, Milford and other communities. SBC, formed by the merger last year of Pacific Telesis and Southwestern Bell, is buying both Ameritech and SNET.
Picket lines were strong, communication with the membership was constant, and support operations seemed to be on a "24-7 " schedule. One way strikers kept the heat on management — and scabs — was through "mobile picketing." Roving strikers followed the work and followed replacement workers as they set out each morning. This tactic captured both the public’s — and SNET’s — attention, with some customers inviting strikers into their homes to watch over the work being performed by scabs, while the company’s hired gun, the union-busting law firm of Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman, tried to block the union’s right to picket through court action.
Unfair labor practice charges filed by the company and a sham anti-picketing lawsuit sought by the Jackson, Lewis firm have been dropped, the local reported.
Even before the strike began, the SNET workers were determined to get their message out, and to get a fair contract. From leafleting at SNET-sponsored Pilot Pen tennis tournaments to a "garden party" and personal confrontation with SNET chief executive Dan Miglio in his own neighborhood — taped by an accompanying local television crew — to delegations of strikers building support on the campuses of Yale University and Connecticut College, union members made their case for justice.
CWA also supported the campaign with radio and print advertising in Hartford, New Haven and other communities.
Vice President Al Gore met with strikers in Meriden, and, along with other national and state elected officials, urged CWA members "to keep up the good fight." Other messages of support and solidarity came from Puerto Rican telephone union leaders Annie Cruz, Independent Brotherhood of Telephone Workers, and Jose Acosta, Independent Union of Telephone Workers, who attended the Mitford rally, and from CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen, who joined a huge turnout in Hartford.
The SNET strikers also worked with community allies and consumer organizations who monitored the company’s poor service during the strike and called on the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control to provide rebates to customers.
The 32-month agreement covers some 6,300 workers — operators, technicians, customer service representatives — and provides an across-the-board compounded wage increase of 11.4 percent, and additional equity pay raises that will boost annual earnings by 15.9 percent. Upgrades for workers in several job classifications, including installation and repair technicians, will boost wages even higher.
The agreement ends the company’s two-tier health plan that unfairly penalized newer workers. It eliminates all health care premium costs for both individual and family coverage by the end of the contract term for the point of service option, and expands dental, vision and other health care benefits.
The contract improves the cash balance account retirement plan, with increased benefits for longer-service workers, and increases that raise the base on which company contributions are determined. Limits on overtime hours, improvements in hours and holiday pay and new job security provisions are among other contract gains.
Solidarity, lots of hard work and the support of CWA members throughout the union made all the difference.
At a Hartford rally, CWA President Morton Bahr told SNET workers that "this strike is the focus of our entire union, especially the 100,000 members of SBC companies." Following up on a pledge of support made during the CWA convention, Vice Presidents Jeff Rechenbach, District 4, Ben Turn, District 6, and Tony Bixler, District 9, who headed the SBC Workers Solidarity Committee, joined thousands of SNET strikers at weekly mass rallies in Hartford, New Haven, Meriden, Milford and other communities. SBC, formed by the merger last year of Pacific Telesis and Southwestern Bell, is buying both Ameritech and SNET.
Picket lines were strong, communication with the membership was constant, and support operations seemed to be on a "24-7 " schedule. One way strikers kept the heat on management — and scabs — was through "mobile picketing." Roving strikers followed the work and followed replacement workers as they set out each morning. This tactic captured both the public’s — and SNET’s — attention, with some customers inviting strikers into their homes to watch over the work being performed by scabs, while the company’s hired gun, the union-busting law firm of Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman, tried to block the union’s right to picket through court action.
Unfair labor practice charges filed by the company and a sham anti-picketing lawsuit sought by the Jackson, Lewis firm have been dropped, the local reported.
Even before the strike began, the SNET workers were determined to get their message out, and to get a fair contract. From leafleting at SNET-sponsored Pilot Pen tennis tournaments to a "garden party" and personal confrontation with SNET chief executive Dan Miglio in his own neighborhood — taped by an accompanying local television crew — to delegations of strikers building support on the campuses of Yale University and Connecticut College, union members made their case for justice.
CWA also supported the campaign with radio and print advertising in Hartford, New Haven and other communities.
Vice President Al Gore met with strikers in Meriden, and, along with other national and state elected officials, urged CWA members "to keep up the good fight." Other messages of support and solidarity came from Puerto Rican telephone union leaders Annie Cruz, Independent Brotherhood of Telephone Workers, and Jose Acosta, Independent Union of Telephone Workers, who attended the Mitford rally, and from CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen, who joined a huge turnout in Hartford.
The SNET strikers also worked with community allies and consumer organizations who monitored the company’s poor service during the strike and called on the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control to provide rebates to customers.