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Hill to Telecom Locals: Organize or Die January 8, 2002
"What we do when we walk out of here tomorrow will decide whether we stay in telecommunications," President Hill said to local officers and business representatives from across the United States. "We cannot continue to lose." The two-day meeting, which drew three times the expected number of participants, will lay a blueprint for recapturing representation in an industry where job losses resulting from downsizing, mergers and acquisitions have devastated membership. Telecommunications Director Joseph Pennas presentation illustrated the stark message. In the year 2001 alone, there were 317,000 job cuts in telecommunications, many of them union members. As use of traditional telecommunications land lines has declined, the number of people using cellular or wireless communications is skyrocketing. From 1999 to 2000, corporate revenues from the wireless industry shot up nearly 20 percent. "Thats where the growth is going," Penna said. Over the course of the conference, attendees heard from IBEW Education Director Marty Letsinger on face-to-face organizing, leafleting and hand billing. Penna and International Representative Martha Pultar will discuss targeting areas and forming organizing plans. International Representative Carl Cantrell will introduce the new telecommunications Web site, which will be linked to the IBEWs site at www.ibew.org. President Hill said temporary organizers would be assigned to certain locals to aid in the campaign. "Brothers and sisters, there are targets out there," President Hill said. "We must identify them and go after them as if our very life depended on it. Because it does."
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"In the year 2001 alone, there were 317,000 job cuts in telecom- munications, many of them union members." -- Penna
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IBEW
President Edwin D. Hills message to nearly 100 attendees at the
Telecommunications Organizing meeting Tuesday in Washington was
a simple one: organize now or continue suffering devastating losses
until the IBEW no longer has a foothold in the industry.
