Communications Workers of America

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The Communications Workers of America ( English , for example: American workers in communications companies , short CWA ) is a US-American union with about 700,000 members in the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico . The CWA is a member of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Canadian Labor Congress and the UNI Global Union . The Communications Workers of America was founded in 1938 as the National Federation of Telephone Workers and was renamed to its current name in 1947. It is organized into 1,200 local unions.

history

Since 1910 there have been efforts by the employees in the telephone service to organize themselves independently of one another. Originally women were excluded because unions did not accept the telephone operators as members. Before the end of World War I, the US government nationalized the telephone industry in order to prevent the labor disputes of the now strengthened unions. In 1919, the members of the individual organizations numbered more than 20,000 people for the first time. The AT&T group promoted the formation of employer- related trade unions in the 1920s ; the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) was founded in the same year under the National Labor Relations Act 1935, followed by the National Federation of Telephone Workers (NFTW) in 1938 several dozen individual unions.

First collective agreements and strikes

The American Federation of Labor and the CIO agreed during World War II through the National War Labor Board not to go on strike with their employers in order not to diminish the productivity of the nation despite sharply lower wages; however, the workers in the telephone industry were not organized in any of the associations. The result was strikes in the cities of Ohio , Chicago , Detroit and Washington, DC - the first labor conditions contract was signed with AT&T two years later, following threats of nationwide strikes. Despite this success, 34 of the now 51 unions left the NFTW; In 1947 the conflict with AT&T escalated, the group subverted the NFTW and negotiated separately with members. The Communications Workers of America union was founded with 162,000 members and joined the Congress of Industrial Organization in 1949 .

In 1950, a subcommittee of the United States Senate ruled that the Bell System telephone company (later until Part of AT & Ts was broken up ) had been actively operating anti-union campaigns and thus upheld the CWA's action against it.

Establishment of the National Defense Fund

To support the strikers, the 1952 Assembly of Delegates decided to create a National Defense Fund , into which each member paid half a US dollar per month .

Labor dispute and structural change from 1955 until today

In 1955 some 50,000 employees went on strike for 72 days against the actions of the Southern Bell subsidiary of Bell System to weaken the CWA; In 1963 the union fought for higher wages for the workforce of the General Telephone of California , followed in 1968 by a mass strike of around 200,000 AT&T employees to adjust wages to the increased cost of living .

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission , with the support of the CWA, sued 24 telephone companies for discrimination in their operations, and in 1973 an agreement was reached between the company and the government: In addition to wage increases for women and ethnic minorities , 45 million US dollars were paid in compensation. The CWA established committees on women and minorities that same year; This resulted in the National Women's Conference in 1978 and the First national minoritys conference .

During this time, 400,000 Bell employees went on strike in 1971 and achieved the first adjustment of wages to the cost of living in the company's history.

In 1983 a department for public employees was created after the NY public workers with their 34,000 members joined the CWA in 1980 .

The International Typographical Union, founded in 1852 and with 70,000 members, joined the CWA in 1987.

An agreement was reached with AT&T in 1989 for the first time on childcare allowances and pension insurance contributions for 175,000 members.

The National Association of Broadcastin Employees and Technicians joined the CWA in 1992 with 9,000 members, followed a year later by the 5,000-strong University Workers , a union for employees of the universities of the State University of New York and Indiana University Bloomington . Then there were the 11,000 employees who had organized themselves into the Union of Technical and Professional Employees at the University of California .

The Newspaper Guild with 40,000 members joined in 1997, followed in 2000 by the 110,000 members of the IUE and the 10,000 members of the US Airways Agents . The AFA follows in 2003.

Disputes with T-Mobile US

The CWA has been in conflict with T-Mobile US since at least 2005, and a total of 58 proceedings before the NLRB involve "coercive measures" such as monitoring at the workplace and works council elections .

According to the Union Network International (UNI), the minimum standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO) of the United Nations were guaranteed in 2005. In August 2005, for example, a job advertisement was published in which an “Employee Relations Generalist” was sought for the HR department, the “appropriate interventions with the aim of maintaining a productive and union-free environment "and the" development and implementation of training courses in labor law / human resources matters (eg [...] union avoidance ) ". After several letters of complaint from UNI, the phrase “Union Awareness” for “Union Avoidance” was introduced.

In early 2015, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that T-Mobile US had repeatedly and systematically violated applicable labor law, and that the company was found guilty of eleven out of 13 counts, including "restriction of freedom of speech " and the "possibility of unionization". In the case of new works councils or recognizable trade union involvement, one-on-one discussions were forced: "She and the shop manager threatened the employees several times in forced meetings in the cellar that lasted hours, lied and tried to wear down them."

In June 2015, the United Services Union initiated a “ petition for the protection of employee rights at locations of companies and corporate holdings of Deutsche Telekom abroad”. According to this petition, the "Treasury Department in exercising the rights of the shareholder [the Federal Republic of Germany as the largest sole shareholder in Deutsche Telekom , which in turn is the largest shareholder in T-Mobile US] will be assigned the task of observing employee rights at T-Mobile US." to control and work towards the fact that the company Deutsche Telekom AG (DTAG) implements the ILO standards at all of its locations and does not hinder employees from organizing themselves in a union and exercising their rights. "

literature

  • Bahr, Morton: From the Telegraph to the Internet: A 60 Year History of the CWA . Welcome Rain Publishers, Washington 1998, ISBN 1-56649-949-6 .

Web links

We expect better campaign

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.nlrb.gov/search/cases/t-mobile?f%5B0%5D=ct%3AR nlrb.gov/search/t-mobile, NLRB - website. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  2. ↑ KOMM: Extra edition T-Mobile US , ver.di Publik July 2015. Retrieved on August 2, 2015.
  3. ^ A b Stefan Mey: Trade unionists take action against T-Mobile in the USA , Heise online from August 1, 2015. Retrieved on August 2, 2015.
  4. ↑ weexpectbetter.org/beschaeftigte_berichten . Campaign website. Retrieved August 2, 2015.