Workers Need a Union at Adelphia Now
Adelphia is in big trouble. In a year, the company's stock has plummeted from $48-a-share (June 2001) to an all-time low of 69 cents (as of June 4, 2002) and the stock has been "delisted" from the NASDAQ stock index.
The company has accumulated more than $2.5 billion in Enron-like debt and is forced to repurchase $1.4 billion in bonds in order to get its hands on cash that it desperately needs. In addition, Adelphia’s founding family, the Rigas, are out as owners, and Adelphia’s Board of Directors is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Further aggravating the Board’s efforts to rebuild the company was the sudden resignation of two of its members, Leonard Tow and Scott Schneider, on June 10, and the chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy filing of the Adelphia subsidiary, Century Communications. Tow, who sold Century to Adelphia in 1999, is the second largest owner of Adelphia’s stock, owning about 12 percent of the company’s outstanding shares.
If this wasn’t enough, Adelphia’s Board fired its auditing firm, Deloitte & Touch, on June 9, when it was discovered that the company had overstated its revenue and cash flow in reports filed by the auditor in 2000 and 2001.
FORMING A UNION MAKES SENSE NOW BECAUSE MANAGEMENT COULDN’T JUST CUT OUR WAGES AND BENEFITS AND CHANGE WORKING CONDITIONS. THEY WOULD BE REQUIRED TO NEGOTIATE WITH US.
Faced with this reality, Adelphia’s Board is likely to take one or more steps to help stabilize its future.
Here are some possibilities:
Reduce Pay & Benefits. With Adelphia’s Board searching for ways to find the funds to pay back billions in debt, our wages and benefits or production quotas may become a target. Forming a union now would make good sense for unrepresented employees because Adelphia would have to bargain with us if they wanted to cut wages or change benefits and working conditions.
Adelphia management cannot change working conditions where its workers already have negotiated CWA contracts (see chart). Where Adelphia’s employees are currently in the midst of contract negotiations, management cannot, by law, change any conditions of our employment. Whatever we currently have in terms of wages, benefits, and working conditions is maintained until an agreement is reached in negotiations – and until the contract is approved by us. With our company in such precarious shape, union representation offers critical protections.
Selling Properties to Pay Down Debt.Several Adelphia properties are now on the sales block. If our company sells a number of properties where employees have not organized a union (some analysts have mentioned Charter or Cox as likely bidders), the cable workers at those properties would end up working under the rules, wages and benefits at the purchaser.
However, if we formed a union before our property was sold to a
new owner, wages, benefits, and conditions of our employment would be frozen at current levels until the property is transferred.
WITH A UNION, WE WILL BE ABLE TO NEGOTIATE OVER WAGES, BENEFITS AND WORK RULES OF THE NEW COMPANY IF ADELPHIA DECIDES TO SELL THE PROPERTY WHERE WE WORK.
When the new company takes control, management’s promised wages and benefits would mark the starting point for negotiations. We would begin negotiations from that point. Our ultimate pay, benefits and working conditions would be ratified in an agreement was negotiated, and approved, by us.
With union representation, we would be able to use CWA’s expertise in telecommunications policy to participate in the franchise transfer process and work to tie down some commitments by the company.
Reorganize under Chapter 11. If Adelphia declares bankruptcy, banks and suppliers make claims to the judge who supervises the bankruptcy, reorganization proceedings and future of the company.
Adelphia workers who are represented by a union would have their claims represented by the union’s attorneys.
WITH A UNION, WE WOULD HAVE A SEAT AT
THE TABLE DURING BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS. WITHOUT A UNION, WE WOULD HAVE NO REPRESENTATION.
In these uncertain times at our company, we need a voice at the
table and the protections and rights that only union representation provide. By organizing our own union we would have a seat at the table when the deals are made to chart Adelphia’s future.
For information about forming a union, contact CWA by clicking on this link and filling out the online form.
