‘ON this Labour Day, CWA members aren’t taking it easy. Across our union, we’ve been mobilising for fair contracts, organising new members, fighting back against a bad trade deal, and taking on voter suppression and the obscene amount of money in our political system,’ said Communication Workers of America (CWA) President Chris Shelton ahead of Monday’s Labour Day.
He continued: ‘As we bargain this year for 200,000 CWAers, whether at AT&T and Verizon, United and American Airlines, Delphi, public workers in New Jersey, NBC, GE, hospital workers and at many more companies, one thing is clear. CWA members are standing up for each other’s fights.
‘We say “it’s our turn”, and that means all of us. CEOs today earn 300, 400 or even 1,000 times as much as frontline workers, who haven’t had a real wage increase for more than three decades. These CEOs take the credit and the reward for our productivity and our work. And the 1 per cent is doing better than well.
‘From 2009 to 2012, as the economy slowly came out of the Great Recession, the 1 per cent captured 95 per cent of all income gains. That’s why we’re not resting. CWA families deserve a raise. We deserve secure, sustainable jobs and real improvements in our standard of living. And we’re going to get it.
‘We know that one of the biggest advantages any working person has is union membership. Workers covered by union contracts earn higher wages – 13.6 per cent higher – than their non-union counterparts. For African Americans, the union edge is 17.3 per cent higher, and for Latinos, 23.1 per cent higher.
‘Union members have a voice on the job, and someone to stand with them when management makes unreasonable demands. However, fewer working people than ever have the chance to join a union. Either they’re harassed by companies who use fear, intimidation or harassment to stop them, or they’re classified as “contract employees” by corporations who want to farm out their responsibility for fair compensation to subcontractors.
‘Today, just six out of every 100 private sector workers and 35 out of every 100 public workers have bargaining rights. If more workers were organised, workers could bargain better contracts and not be intimidated by employer threats to move jobs offshore or to cut wages to “remain competitive”.
‘More collective bargaining, for more workers, is the way we will make certain that working people get our fair share in today’s economy. Our members and locals are getting the job done, and I couldn’t be prouder of our union. I know we’re up to this challenge. On Labour Day, we should be celebrating and thanking those who do the work, not attacking their unions and holding them in contempt.
‘This country was built by and sustained every day by working people and without them, our country could not survive. So on behalf of each and every member, hundreds of thousands of the Communications Workers of America, let me say “Thank You for what you do every day, but especially on your day, Labour Day”.’
• Across CWA Districts 1 and 2-13, members are doing their jobs serving Verizon customers at the same time that they continue to mobilise to remind Verizon that they want a fair contract. The contract for 39,000 workers expired August 1.
At daybreak last Tuesday, CWA Local 2204 members were holding informational pickets near the Verizon Staunton garage in Staunton, VA, Local 2204 Secretary-treasurer Jodie Moore said. The technicians have been working all month without a contract and will continue to fight until they get a fair contract.
On Wednesday, Local 2204 members were at Luck Avenue, Roanoke, VA, a location that Verizon is threatening to shut down. The closest place the workers could transfer to is Richmond, VA. No one relishes moving 190 miles away, Moore said. Nearly 200 people picketed outside of the AT&T call centre on South Stream Boulevard in Charlotte, NC.
CWA Local 3603 President Bonnie Overman tells the local news: ‘They don’t have any problem putting their name on football stadiums and golf tournaments, but when it comes to taking care of the people who built the company, there seems to be an issue.’
At New York’s Marist College, 119 secretarial and clerical workers, represented by CWA Local 1120, are fighting for a fair contract. Business Agent Carl Bertsche said: ‘CWA has represented the members at Marist since 1986 and has always had a good working relationship, until this round of bargaining. Marist is looking for givebacks in retiree health care, sick bank and wages. Our members have rallied to the cause and are standing strong to gain a fair and equitable contract.’
• ‘Birmingham was born an industrial city. It should observe Labour Day with the same pride it does Veterans’ Day. Both work holidays offer occasion for honouring the selfless struggles and sacrifices of generations past.’
So say Ahmad Ward Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) Head of Education and Exhibits and Laura Anderson, the Institute’s Archivist and Oral History Project Director. Before they learn about the movement in the churches and streets of Birmingham, visitors to BCRI view ‘Going Up to Birmingham’, a film that places workers, black and white, who built the city at the forefront of the Birmingham story.
Labourers depicted in the BCRI film came to the city for work in mines and mills that developed after the Civil War. These migrant workers toiled for the lowest wages in the nation and many of them were forced to work – as convicts leased from the state to corporations with full cooperation from law enforcement in a corrupt labour system.
By the 1930s and ’40s, workers across the country experienced improvement in labour negotiations thanks to New Deal legislation and increased union organising and activism. In Birmingham, however, owners knew that if they could keep workers of different races in conflict with one another, those workers were less likely to pay attention to what they had in common – deplorable working conditions, low pay rates and horrendous hours – and organise across racial lines to challenge the status quo.
Local leaders fuelled existing conflicts between black and white workers, conflicts over tasks, wages and promotions. Blacks were given the more menial or dangerous jobs while whites were elevated to positions over them regardless of seniority. This climate reflected the completely segregated structure of life in Birmingham and was spurred on by executives.
When workers did organise across racial lines, as in the International Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers’ Union, an independent union that had some successes in Birmingham in the 1930s and ’40s, it was actually the union itself that struggled against discrimination, lack of recognition and, ultimately, internal strife.
Despite the tense climate for labour, some Birmingham workers’ belief in the union persisted. One important activist, who came to Birmingham with his parents at the age of four from Lowndes County, was Colonel Stone ‘Buck’ Johnson (b. 1918 – d. 2012). When Johnson used his union relationships, and the rules, to outsmart segregationist supervisors or negotiate better treatment for fellow labourers, he accumulated courage and tenacity.
He also developed faith in union members black and white who were willing to do the right thing. It took Johnson’s type of courage to serve as a guard around the homes and churches of local civil rights movement leaders – places bombed and people targeted by segregationists out to kill the movement. From within the union ranks Johnson recruited other men to join his effort to offer protection to others.
