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AT&T Broadband Workers Vote IBEW

January/February 2001 IBEW Journal

At AT&T Corporations cable division properties, telecommunications workers are voting for IBEW representation. In the past year, the IBEW has conducted victorious organizing drives at several AT&T Broadband Internet Services (BIS) properties located in the Sixth District. With these victories, the IBEW has begun to realize the opportunity to win a union voice for telecom workers in the cable sector, which, despite some past IBEW successes, remains largely unorganized.

IBEW organizers Lori Blevins, Hector Gonzalez and Lynn Arwood in front of a remote parking lot where they conducted handbilling, card-signing and organizing at the Chicago South AT&T Broadband facility.

The IBEW recognized early the potential opportunity for job growth and organizing presented by AT&Ts 1999 acquisitions of big cable TV companies such as Telecommunications Inc. (TCI) and MediaOne Group Inc. [See June 1999 IBEW Journal article Telecommunications: The Future is Looking Up.] The Journal reported in June 99 that, Approximately 90 percent of 54,000 union eligible workers at AT&T are union members, while only about 3 percent of TCI employees were represented by a union.

In the spring of 1998, the IBEW and the Communications Workers of America reached a four-year contract agreement with AT&T covering unionized workers across the country. The unions negotiated a Neutrality and Consent Election agreement (NCE), which requires the company to remain neutral in union organizing drives at its wireless and cable divisions. Since the spring of 2000, AT&T Broadband has been covered under the union-negotiated NCE agreement.

Approximately 300 employees at AT&T Broadband properties in the Sixth District have gained IBEW representation thus far, said then-IBEW International Representative Lawrence Patrick Curley, coordinator for the Broadband organizing campaigns and negotiations at AT&T properties in the Sixth District. At an AT&T/BIS property in Adrian, Michigan, telecom workers voted for representation by Local 876, Grand Rapids. 

Employees at a facility in Effingham, Illinois, voted for representation by Local 702, West Frankfort. And employees at two locations in Illinois (Chicago and Morris) gained representation by Local 21, Downers Grove. Brother Curley also reported that, as of press time, Local 51 (Springfield, Illinois) organizing campaigns were under way at AT&T Broadband facilities in Peoria and Bloomington. The new IBEW members work as installers, technicians and customer services representatives (all non-management and hourly employees).

AT&T Broadband is not just a cable company, noted Curley. Their goal is to deliver video (cable), data (internet), and local phone service to their customers. Our goal is to raise the AT&T Broadband employees standard of living to the level currently enjoyed by our other members in the telecommunications industry.

The IBEW is optimistic that the AT&T [neutrality] pact and the mergers could provide important entry into the lightly unionized cable sector, the Journal reported in June of 1999. Thus far, the cable industry has limited union membership to about 5 percent of eligible workers, but with the success of organizing campaigns, union membership in the cable industry could increase exponentially in the future.