Victories pending for AT&T Broadband employees at Ocean City, MD and Gallup, NM
Employees who voted for CWA representation at AT&T Broadband facilities in Ocean City, Maryland, and Gallup, New Mexico, are awaiting news of whether they won the right to represent themselves in bargaining with management.
On April 18, "inside" employees (CSSRs and clerks) at AT&T Broadband's Ocean City, Md., office voted for CWA representation by a vote of 6 "yes" to 5 for "No Union." One vote was not counted because it was challenged by CWA. The union challenged the eligibility of one of the voters who it believes is a confidential management employee and should have been excluded from the vote count.
A final decision on CWA's challenge will be held by a third party neutral arbitrator on April 28.
On April 3, technicians at AT&T Broadband's Ocean City office voted 18-5 for CWA representation.
Results of another CWA representation election at AT&T Broadband - in Gallup, NM - will be shortly decided when workers' votes from the April 11 election are counted.
The vote count in the unit of inside and outside employees was held up until a Third Party Neutral arbitrator ruled on the appropriateness of the bargaining unit.
In the April 21 hearing, the arbitrator said CWA's original election filing for the outside unit of employees only was appropriate stating, "the fact that the union has agreed to an overall unit at several other locations of the employer does not preclude it from seeking to represent a different appropriate unit at this location."
Management claimed that four CSSRs from Gallup should be included in the unit as well. Prior to the vote, CWA and the workers decided that the CSSRs should be able to vote as well after determining that support for union representation would be strong enough to prevail.
CWA will now ask the AAA to return to Gallup and conduct a vote count of the ballots from the election held on April 11. The employees are confident that a majority of their co-workers voted for CWA representation....
