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Excerpts from
Address of
JERRY J. OCONNOR
INTERNATIONAL SECRETARY-TREASURER
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS

To the

IBEW TELECOMMUNICATIONS/BROADCASTING CONFERENCE
New Orleans, Louisiana
June 5, 2002

Its good to be here in the Crescent City with all of you good folks from not one, but two branches of the Brotherhood. Its also good to see so many of you inside the hall paying attention at a conference held in New Orleans. I dont to say this is a party town, but down here they consider dying from cirrhosis of the liver to be death by natural causes.

But as we all know, it is serious business that brings us here. President Hill has given you his usual straightforward assessment of the big picture. And in the general session and workshops you will be hearing about many issues in great detail. So I want to focus on one key theme that cuts across many areas membership involvement.

As Secretary-Treasurer, my job is to help count the members. But if it stopped there, I wouldnt be doing my duty as an International Officer, nor would any of you be doing yours. The real question is not how many members we have important as that is the real question is: What do we do with members once we have them on the rolls?

As union officers, we have a duty to serve our members to the best of your abilities. But we have an even greater responsibility to them we have to lead. We have to turn unorganized workers and even many organized ones into good union members. I define good union members as men and women who are willing to do their fair share in the never-ending fight for social justice. They are willing to shoulder some of the load along with their brothers and sisters to keep a local union alive and well. Most of all, a good union members is willing to give something back, not just take the monetary and material benefits of belonging to a union.

The best way members can give something back is to respond to a call to action put forth by their leaders. This ability to mobilize members is what separates the labor movement from other forces in society some of which are out to do us harm. Were not the richest movement out there our enemies can outspend us any day of the week. But when we click on all cylinders, there is nobody who can beat us.

Membership involvement takes two major forms in this day and age organizing and political action. When I say political action, I include legislative activism because we all know that without the political clout, you dont get much done in the halls of legislatures at any level.

Our success in making our viewpoint known in the legislative arena is directly tied to the effort we put into the political arena. And Im happy to say that we have gotten better at it in recent years.

In the last election cycle in the United States, we had full-time campaign coordinators in the battleground states and in the targeted congressional districts with sizable IBEW membership. It is that effort -- the shoe leather, the phone calls, the flyers on the job, the gritty part of the grass-roots work that allows us to take advantage of our strength in numbers while our opponents rely on their strength in dollars.

In the U.S., we have regularly scheduled elections. The Canadian parliamentary system is less predictable, but that makes political activism all the more important. Youve got to have the communications and mobilization systems in place to be able to go on short notice.

One thing we need to do better on both sides of the border is to get our members thinking straight about their jobs as they relate to politics. It pains me to see our members vote against their own economic self-interest because somebody else got to them first. Whether the issue is guns or religion or immigration or whatever, too many of our members still let their prejudices outweigh their common sense. At the convention last year, Ed called this madness, and there is no other word for it.

Its no secret that the people who have the most credibility with the members are their own local leaders. They know you. They see you. They can relate to you. Im just a guy in a suit from Washington. But youre the one they listen to.

The International stands ready to help put a political action program in place. We have tons of material and can put you in touch with the brothers and sisters who have hands on experience. The AFL-CIO and the CLC have resource materials available. This has got to be part of our mission. It will affect our ability to have an impact on the future of the telecommunications and broadcasting industries and to fight for the good of all our members.

Lets look at a concrete example. One of our prime organizing targets is broadband where the big news is the proposed merger between AT&T and Comcast. To say that an anti-union culture is alive and well among management at these two companies is like saying that a bear does his business in the woods. It is painfully obvious. AT&T Broadband made it clear that once the previous contract expired, the neutrality clause was a thing of the past as far as they were concerned. And many of you in this room know first hand the resistance that has faced our organizers at these companies. The anti-union sentiment resulting from the merger between these two entities will feed on itself and make our job that much harder.

But there is more than one way to skin a cat. The political process can be put to good use in this fight. I am heartened by reports from New England, Chicago and elsewhere that our locals are taking the fight to local government. Brave organizers leafleting on a lonely corner or brave local leaders trying to negotiate a contract might not make a dent in the giants armor. But when these same brave organizers, making common cause with consumer groups and pointing out the negative impact that these merged companies would have on service, on rates and on communities now that gets the politicians attention. And that gets the companies attention. And suddenly, people who wanted to throw us out might be willing to talk.

So you see that political action isnt something that only has an impact if far-off Washington, D.C. or in your state or provincial capitol. Political action is like a vegetable its best when its fresh and homegrown. And it can make your working life and the lives of all your members much better if you can motivate them to get involved.

President Hill spoke clearly about the challenge to organize and to innovate in telecommunications and broadcasting. Sometimes the best form of innovation is to put in practice a time-tested method. The IBEW and all of organized labor has learned that membership involvement is a critical component of effective organizing.

There is not a trade or occupation whose members dont respond better to someone just like them, who knows their concerns about the job and understands the hopes and fears of those working in it. The folks now working in the turbulent telecommunications and broadcasting industries need to hear from those who are like them. They need to be talked to by those who have been in their shoes and learned first hand that a having a union makes all the difference. We need and have officer and staff involvement in organizing. But we cannot ignore the electricity that rank and file organizers bring to the party whether they are hired as temporary organizers or volunteer their time.

In telecommunications and broadcasting, we have seen what happens when a rival union gets it members involved in organizing and we dont. Were usually the ones wondering what went wrong, while the other union counts it s new members. When we practice what we preach, we do just fine. So lets put our ideals of grassroots commitment and member involvement into practice. Lets use our greatest strength as an organization our members.

There is no shortage of organizing targets, as will be discussed at this conference. And there is no shortage of political targets, especially in the United States where we will be electing 36 governors, 33 U.S. Senators, 435 members of the House of Representatives, and a slew of local offices all the way down to dog catcher. And every one of those officials yes, even the dog catcher has an impact on our jobs.

Experience tells us that local political involvement in the form of a workplace flyer or handout, or a local union newsletter has a bigger impact than anything lese. Here again, when somebody that a worker knows sticks a piece of paper in their hand and tells them that candidate Joe Smith deserves their vote, an individual tends to believe it. Ed and I can and do pound the drums from our bully pulpits in the Journal and at meetings. But you and your members are the ones who can seal the deal.

You can make a difference this election year by doing one of the most patriotic things possible making sure that your members and their families are registered to vote and then get down to the polls on November 5. At a time when our country has been under attack and faces a grave situation in the world, what could be more fitting than to exercise one of the most fundamental freedoms that we hold dear in our democracy? This year, your vote has an even more special meaning than usual. This year, your vote and our voice are a direct rebuke to the Osamas of the world.

Our political opponents within our borders are pulling out all the stops. Some of them have even shamefully used the war on terrorism to further their goals. Remember how the Republican National Committee was selling pictures of President Bush taken on September 11 as a door prize for their fat cat contributors? These are the same people who tar us with every dirty name they can think of. This year, your vote also sends a message to the corporate elite that we havent forgotten that our domestic freedoms and rights are still high on our agenda too.

So there you have it, brothers and sisters. Theres a lot going on. We all of us, as a Brotherhood are working on all fronts to accomplish our basic mission making lives better for our members. Every day brings a new challenge. Some days bring small defeats, but many more days see us win victories, large and small, that keep the IBEW moving forward. And thats we will continue to do.

I thank you and I look forward to meeting with as many of you as possible during the rest of this conference.