Doug Johnson, AT&T
Chief Steward, Local 6215, Dallas, TX
Hello, my name is Doug Johnson. I am originally from Brooklyn NY. I currently live in Dallas Texas. I work for AT&T and my title is Technical Support Representative 2. I work in Richardson, Texas. This past October, I celebrated my 20 year anniversary. I currently serve as Chief Steward for the N.I.C (National Internet Contract). Currently, I have approximately 500 people in my jurisdiction. I have been a Union member since day one. I joined the Union even before I knew what the Union was or the purpose of the Union. I joined because I was told I had to. I was told this is a Union job and this is a Union company. I have been an activist ever since.
I joined the company in 1996 with yellow pages, verifying every single line listings in the white pages. Over the next 5 years, I was promoted to several customer service focused jobs. These jobs included answering complaints on an incoming 800 line in our customer service center. Then to our collections department. Afterwards, I spent a couple of years as a Service Representative.
During this time I was given many opportunities to be involved in Union activities. I became a Union Steward and was heavily involved in Yellow Page contract negotiations. Then I was given an opportunity to assist with the Unionization and Mobilization of Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems. That took well over a year and I learned a lot. From that point, I focused on signing up Union members. That along with education is the lifeblood of this Union. We need to continue to sign up new members, we need to continue to have relationships with those who are not part of the Union. That way, we can continue to educate them on what we are doing, our plans for the future and how they are included. While we build these relationships we gather information -- names, numbers, email addresses etc. Now we have the makings of a strong viable network. That way when we have issues that affect our Customer Service constituents, we can get the word out, we can mobilize and we can energize and strategize!!!