Union Pays off for Union Activists at Comcast
Wrongly Terminated, Techs Get Back Jobs at South Hills, PA
Two union activists at Comcast won back their jobs at the company’s South Hills, PA, office, after arbitrators found that the cable technicians had been wrongly terminated.
On Oct. 15 an arbitrator ordered that CWA Local 13000 member Reggie Frezell be returned to his job with back pay, seniority and a lump sum payment of $5,000 to cover lost benefits. In another case, a second arbitrator ruled that the company had insufficient evidence to uphold the unjust firing of another South Hills technician, Bill Gilchrist. A date has not yet been set for Gilchrist’s return to work.
Co-workers and union members from the Pittsburgh area celebrated the arbitration victory by traveling to the Comcast office to welcome Frezell when he returned to his job. CWA represents about 135 technicians at Comcast's South Hills office, and more than a 1,000 Comcast workers in the state.
Management fired Frizell for falsifying company records, but his actual “crime” was failing to record that he accidentally locked his keys in the company truck. "I locked my keys in my truck one day, tried to get into it on my lunch hour and didn't record it," Frizell says.
Both men have been staunch CWA supporters and were, prior to their dismissals, not only union supporters, but also stewards and members of the workers’ bargaining committee at South Hills. Their bargaining for a first contract has been ongoing for more than two years.
Immediately upon Frezell's welcome-back reception, the South Hills technicians were whisked into a 2-hour “captive audience” meeting with Comcast's senior director of labor relations for the Western Atlantic Region.
The company is supporting a decertification campaign against the workers’ union and the election is set for Nov. 12.
CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said the workers’ story is a “huge victory for us at a company that is a prime example of the bargaining rights crisis in our nation. That's why our locals and the AFL-CIO are ramping up to draw public attention to how companies treat their workers,” he said.
CWA and the AFL-CIO are enlisting public officials and candidates to intervene in labor disputes and to pass stronger bargaining rights laws. On Dec. 10, union members nationwide are planning mass actions in support of collective bargaining and organizing rights.
