It was decades in the making, but the call center workers at utility company Southern California Edison finally have a voice on the job, thanks to the efforts of a dedicated volunteer organizing committee and Diamond Bar, Calif., Local 47.
"This one has been long overdue," Business Manager Colin Lavin said. "It's been really great to see it all the way to the finish line."
Local 47 has represented workers at SCE since the 1940s. Most of those employees, currently about 4,200 out of the utility's roughly 12,000 total, work in jobs centered around construction and maintenance of the power grid, anything from power generation to transmission lines, substations and distribution lines. But there's long been a desire among the call center staff to have representation as well. Attempts have been made over the past few decades, but none came to fruition.
This time was different. A lot of the issues would be familiar to organizers and other call center workers — poor management, new systems that don't do what they're supposed to and end up causing more problems, a lack of proper training and support. But this time morale hit rock bottom. And this time the workers were fired up and willing to put it all on the line.
"It's about being viewed as a person and not a number," said Martin Gaitan, an energy adviser and member of the volunteer organizing committee. "It doesn't matter if I'm a leader or a good worker. If I don't get the right metrics, it could lead to disciplinary action, up to termination."
As call center employees, Gaitan and his co-workers are tasked with assisting anyone from residential customers to commercial clients. Any number of issues can arise on the other end of the line, and it's their job to solve the problem and make sure the situation is handled amicably.
It's not always easy, but it's work they know how to do and they do it well — when they're given the right tools. But when a new phone system was implemented, ostensibly to enhance performance, their jobs got harder instead of easier. Employee morale, as well as customer service, started to decline.
"When I started, there was an emphasis on quality customer support. We wanted to be the best. But it's gone downhill," said Norma Diaz, an energy adviser who's been with the company for about eight years. "I don't hear that anymore."
The new phone system emphasizes statistics that don't accurately measure what the employees are dealing with — they don't allow for the countless variations and exceptions that could occur on any given call — but it also comes with the consequences of being disciplined and even terminated if they don't hit the right numbers. Someone could have great numbers one month but if they dropped the next, they could be on the chopping block.
"So many of the workers have bad anxiety because they're afraid of getting fired," Local 47 organizer Andrew McKercher said. "Close to 10% of the call center is on leave because of how their job has affected them mentally."
Discipline often meant losing the ability to work from home and having to come into the office, where they were supposed to get "performance enhancement" training. That's not what happened.
"The performance enhancement plan was more of a punishment than anything else," Gaitan said. "I'm all for enhancement plans that meet objectives or goals. Sadly, this plan was not what it was advertised as."
On top of that, when the campaign started last September, there were 354 workers on the call center list. By the time they filed the petition, there were only 280, McKercher said, likely due to the outsourcing of those 74 jobs to Mexico. It's a practice that started two to three years ago, Diaz said. And those representatives weren't getting adequate training either.
"Those reps only take certain calls, and when an issue doesn't get resolved, it creates more issues for us," said Diaz, who was also on the organizing committee.
In addition to the new phone system, and what Diaz and Gaitan said were near constant changes with no transparency or fairness, SCE was also cutting back on benefits. New hires were no longer eligible for a pension. Performance statistics were also used to determine things like scheduling and time off instead of the former seniority-based system. Like a lot of companies, management tried to assuage everyone with a raise. But money was never what the campaign was about, McKercher said. It was about working conditions and respect.
"They failed to realize that the workers were unionizing because they didn't like how they were being treated," McKercher said. "A raise is nice, but that wasn't going to solve their problems."
For Diaz, the organizing campaign wasn't about painting SCE in a poor light so much as it was about making the company better.
"Edison is a great company. I came from a job with no benefits," she said. "But everyone wants a positive work environment. We all just want to be comfortable."
Issues like being assigned overtime with little or no notice, with no regard for an employee's other responsibilities like finding child care, also contributed, Gaitan said.
"They talk about a work-life balance, but there isn't one," he said. "It directly clashes with their frequently mentioned mental health commitment."
Gaitan remembers the previous organizing drives. Things were bad then, too, but this time around, the conditions were no longer tenable.
"Things had gotten so bad that it didn't seem like it could get any worse," he said. "The work environment just kept getting more and more toxic."
This was also the first time that he volunteered to help with the campaign.
"I never thought I'd be involved, but there was a need for leadership," said Gaitan, who's been with the company for over 20 years.
With so many people working from home, it was hard to reach everyone and engage with them face-to-face, but the organizing committee persevered. They held meetings at an Applebee's near the main office and divided up contact lists. They asked everybody to contact one or two people they knew to help spread the word. They reached out to the Research Department at the International Office for help with getting contact information for those they couldn't otherwise reach. Having longtime workers on board like Gaitan, who were trusted and had strong reputations to stand on, also helped.
"It was very grassroots," Gaitan said. "It's because of the people who were involved that we were successful."
They also listened to their coworkers and made sure they knew they were being heard, Diaz and Gaitan said.
"Our success came from addressing everyone's concerns, from training to benefits to the constant changes that weren't having a positive impact," Diaz said. "It was about getting more empathy and less anxiety."
They filed for the election with about 55% support, knowing there was still another 30% of the unit they hadn't yet contacted. But once they got the voter list, and some help from call center workers out of Vacaville Local 1245, they phone-banked all the workers they hadn't contacted before.
"After the first week, it was very evident we had a really strong campaign," McKercher said.
They won the final vote with 85% voting yes.
"This success comes from our strong volunteer committee and all the work they put in, as well as the support of Business Manager Lavin who gave us the resources, time and flexibility to do our job," McKercher said.
Next up are contract negotiations. Gaitan said he'd like to see a more streamlined and consistent training process where team members can interact face-to-face, which has more value than virtual training. He also wants a more level playing field.
"At the core, most everybody wants to do well at their job, but the constraints don't allow for that," he said. "We need an atmosphere that's less stressful and more fair and transparent. That's how we all succeed."