Why We Need the Employee Free Choice Act
Comcast Corporation: A Systematic Campaign to Deny Workers' Rights
Comcast Corp. is the nation's biggest provider of cable services, with 24 million cable subscribers and big plans for moving into new communications technology.
It's a highly profitable company, one that pays its top executives well, while workers earn, on average, about $27,000 a year.
Comcast also is a company that has a systematic strategy to intimidate and misinform workers about unions, stall bargaining where workers have voted for union representation and when all else fails, orchestrate decertification campaigns to bring about a "union-free" environment.
Just a few examples:
* In 2002, Comcast illegally fired two Pittsburgh area technicians who were union supporters. A year later, both were ordered to be reinstated by arbitrators, along with back pay and compensation for lost benefits.
Workers in Pittsburgh continue to fight for a first contract, nearly four years after voting for a union voice. In fact, these workers have voted for union representation in three National Labor Relations Board elections.
But under current labor law, they and more than 2,000 others who voted for a union can't get a contract.
A worker in Beaver Falls, Pa., also was fired for trying to organize a union.
Comcast's latest tactic: Pittsburgh area layoffs that target union supporters and blame the Communications Workers of America for the job losses.
Comcast is so determined to keep out the union that it won't agree to contract language in Pittsburgh that it has agreed to at other locations.
* In Hialeah, Fla., Comcast fired a union supporter who was called to active duty with the Navy in Guantanamo Bay in 2001. Comcast refused to return this employee to work after his military service was finished. The NLRB determined that Comcast had erred and called on the company to reinstate the worker. When Comcast refused, the NLRB issued a complaint. The worker accepted a cash settlement.
* In Ocean City, Maryland, Comcast orchestrated a decertification campaign by refusing to provide the retiree health care benefits that are standard at non-union facilities to workers at Ocean City. Three technicians nearing retirement age were forced to choose between retirement security and union representation.
In more than three dozen communities, Comcast has violated labor law and refused to respect workers' rights to make a free and fair choice. The company also spends millions of dollars on union-busting law firms.
Subterfuge is another favorite Comcast tactic. In Sacramento in 2003, Comcast found an employee to press for decertification of the union. That employee was rewarded with a promotion into a non-union represented job.
A similar tactic was used in Los Angeles, where an employee who agreed to head up the decertification campaign was made a maintenance supervisor. The company permitted workers to distribute anti-union material on company time. A Comcast manager even told workers there that he had been ordered to "do whatever it takes to get rid of the union in Los Angeles."
Comcast also has created what it calls the "Labor Swat Team." This team is deployed to any location in the country to wage a union decertification campaign. At captive audience meetings, workers are asked "what will it take to get rid of the union?" Short term fixes might be made, but workers continue to face losing their union or being unable to bargain a contract.
All of these tactics violate the letter and spirit of federal labor law. Yet Comcast, like so many other companies, realizes that there is no real penalty for violating workers' rights. Please take a stand for working Americans, who simply want to exercise the rights they have under federal law: to freely and fairly choose whether they want union representation in the workplace.
Support the Employee Free Choice Act.
Support the Employee Free Choice Act.
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