St. Louis AT&T Local Service Techs are latest to win CWA representation
Spurred on by news of co-workers' successful campaigns to win union representation at AT&T Broadband offices over the past 3 weeks, formerly unrepresented technicians at AT&T Local Service in St. Louis voted for and won representation with CWA Local 6350 on April 14, 2000.
The vote was 8 to 5 in the election conducted under procedures laid out under the Neutrality and Consent Election (NCE) agreement negotiated between CWA and AT&T.
The majority of workers at AT&T Local Service, like those at AT&T's two other recent acquisitions, AT&T Broadband, formerly TCI, and AT&T Wireless, formerly McCaw Communications, are nonunion. As a result, these workers' pay and working conditions are worse than CWA-represented workers doing the same or similar jobs at AT&T's unionized businesses.
By winning representation elections, the workers are able to gain the right to negotiate pay and working conditions with management.
The election victory at AT&T Local Service in St. Louis is the ninth election that unrepresented employees at the corporation's new divisions have won since last spring. The other victories have come at AT&T Local Service in Mesa, Arizona; Kansas City; at AT&T Wireless at West Palm Beach, Florida; and at AT&T Broadband at Clinton, Iowa; Ocean City, Maryland; at Gillette, Iowa; at Rawlins, Wyoming; and at Montrose/Delta, Colorado.
Meanwhile, organizing activity has been picking up among AT&T Broadband workers because they are now covered by the CWA-AT&T NCE agreement which makes it easier and faster for workers to win representation rights.
CWA has filed notice of organizing activity at many ATT Broadband locations: Mt. Prospect (Chicago), IL; St. Louis, MO (four locations in all: Imperial, St. Louis, Overland and St. Peters: Springfield, MO, Salt Lake City, UT (3 locations); Eugene and Portland, OR; Santa Fe, NM; No. Dade (Miami), FL; Arlington, TX. Workers in Gallup, NM, have filed cards with the American Arbitration Association.
