Big labor makes wireless progress

Anyone who has seen “Norma Rae” knows that union negotiations are supposed to be tough and mean. But that's not how it worked when The Communications Workers of America recently landed a deal with Cingular Wireless to unionize 2100 workers in Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland.

The four-year contract calls for a pay progression system—from starting pay to top of scale—a minimum 15.3% wage increase over the contract term and the establishment of a grievance system, while it maintains existing retirement and health benefits.

“The negotiation with Cingular was one of the best experiences I've had in 25 years of collective bargaining,” said Larry Cohen, CWA executive vice president. “The top management in the company had a sincere interest in listening to the employees' concerns and to try to negotiate based on that.

Cingular Success

Most of the Communications Workers of America's success in wireless has been with one company

Cingular Wireless	10,000	workers
Qwest	3500	workers
AT&T Wireless	300	workers
Verizon Wireless	50	workers
Source: CWA

“Traditionally, you would just bargain the pay and forget about everything else. But we did not take a cookie cutter to this negotiation.”

In fact, union officials noted they did not attempt to negotiate commission rates for sales personnel covered by the agreement. The compensation for these workers is tied heavily to commissions, as high as 60% in many cases.

“CWA has been a good partner with SBC Wireless, and we saw no reason to back off that,” he said. “Some of our best operating properties are represented by the union.”
—Lew Walker, Cingular

Cingular—formed by the merger of SBC Communications' and BellSouth's wireless companies—welcomed the CWA in these additional facilities, largely because it has enjoyed a positive history with the union, said Lew Walker, vice president of labor relations at Cingular. Of the roughly 14,000 wireless workers now under the watchful eye of the CWA, approximately 10,000—including the new members—are former employees of SBC Wireless now working for Cingular (see box).

“CWA has been a good partner with SBC Wireless, and we saw no reason to back off that,” he said. “Some of our best operating properties are represented by the union.”

The union also represents some of the wireless industry's most sought-after workers—a crucial bargaining chip when the current labor pool is short on skilled labor, said Elliott Hamilton, director of global wireless for The Strategis Group.

“From Cingular's point of view, the technicians and those people dealing with the wireless industry are incredibly in demand,” he said. “To get these workers off the street would be a very difficult task.”

This realization helped motivate Cingular to get the deal done, Cohen said.

“In the U.S., there is a shortage of people with the skill sets and a long-term commitment—or even a medium-term commitment—to stay in the field,” he said. “One of the things we discussed with Cingular at length was churn. A huge amount of money is wasted by constantly hiring people, training them and then seeing them leave in a year.”

The deal also is important for the CWA as consolidation causes union rolls in wireline companies to stagnate or decline, said Ray Hodges, a senior consultant for Technology Futures.

“Unionizing wireless has been a key strategic area for the unions,” he said. “It's not as labor-intensive as wireline, but it is a good place to go for those who are getting displaced due to consolidation.”

CWA hopes to double its current membership of wireless workers during the next several years. The first steps will be taken next month, when workers at Verizon Wireless facilities in 14 states determine whether they want union representation through a process called “card check,” which is designed to let workers vote without any influence from company management.

Getting Verizon to agree to the card check was not an easy task. In fact, it took an 18-day strike last summer before the company did so. “During the last strike, Verizon Wireless made it very clear—and I heard this firsthand from top management—that they would do whatever it takes to prevent collective bargaining at their firm,” Cohen said.

For its part, Verizon was hesitant to comment on its relationship with the CWA given the pending status of the card-check vote. However, a company spokesman indicated the procedure is another step in a lengthy process.

“The neutrality agreement is something the CWA has wanted for years… to make it easier for them to attempt to organize wireless workers,” said the spokesman. “To date, they've had little or no success in doing so, and we don't see any change to that in the immediate future.”