WASHINGTON Job security, working conditions and transfers-standard fare in labor talks-are all on the table.
But the closely watched contract negotiation between VerizonCommunications and its two unions is fast becoming a barometer forhow the labor movement will galvanize workers in emerging sectors ofthe economy.
This is "the strike of the 21st century," said Gary Chaison,professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester,Mass.
Contract discussions touch on issues raised by industries intransition to new types of technology, consolidation-Verizon emergedfrom several recent mergers-and the more limited influence of unionsin jobs created by the new economy.
The Communications Workers of America and InternationalBrotherhood of Electrical Workers have used the negotiations to pushfor better access to organize employees in Verizon's fast-growingwireless division, which has virtually no union membership.
Organizers fear that without better representation in that unit,the company's union membership soon will be diluted.
The battle being waged by Verizon's unions reflects a broadereffort by labor for a foothold in expanding areas of the economy,particularly as manufacturing sectors, labor's traditional base, haveshrunk over the past decades.
"It's the growth sectors of the U.S. economy, the industries ofthe future, that have become very important for the labor movement torevitalize itself," said Daniel Cornfield, a labor sociologist atVanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
In some hot high-tech areas such as Silicon Valley, labor leadershave tried to stimulate workers to organize.
A CWA-financed organization, the Washington Alliance of TechnologyWorkers, or WashTech, represents about 250 employees of suchcompanies as Microsoft and Amazon.com. Although it doesn'tcollectively bargain, WashTech has pushed to get rid of a stateexemption on mandated overtime for certain computer workers.
"We haven't figured out yet how to build a new type of union thatworks for a new type of economy, but we are moving in thatdirection," said local President Mike Blain.
Nationwide, most new economy industries remain largely nonunion.
Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Associationof America, which represents the industry, says union membership isnot attractive to high-tech workers, who receive good wages andsometimes extraordinary benefits. They also don't have the sameworries about job security, since they're in high demand in a tightmarket, he said.
"As long as the workers are in a very positive relationship, wherethey are basically calling the shots, I just don't think there is toomuch that a union can offer them," Miller said. "You have to plantseeds where the ground is fertile."
Labor leaders rebut that serious stumbling blocks exist toorganizing even in new economy sectors where employees areinterested.
Chris Woods, assistant director in the AFL-CIO's organizingdepartment, said the industries have evolved during a time in whichemployers are more savvy about how to keep out organized labor.
Employers "are using very sophisticated, but still very effective,anti-union propaganda," she said.
By and large the wireless industry, which has grown substantiallyin recent years, is not unionized. In contrast, unions cemented theirmembership in traditional telecommunications services in earlierparts of the century. In the landline division of Verizon, part ofthe original Bell telephone system, more than 80 percent of workersare unionized.
Today "union organizing occurs on a different terrain than it didsome 50 years ago," Vanderbilt's Cornfield said. Companies "are offthe steep part of the learning curve in resisting unionization."
For that reason, unions are pushing for a system by which wirelessworkers could authorize their desire to organize by checking offcards, rather than holding elections as the company favors.
Verizon, for its part, rejects the contention that the main bodyof its workers lacks access to high-tech jobs. The company arguesthat a substantial portion of its work force expansion has been inhigh-speed Internet services, delivered over traditional phone linesand covered by unions.
"The data business is the source of our growth," said Verizonspokesman Eric Rabe.
Some say changing technology that threatens to replace workersmakes job security all the more critical in such sectors. The AFL-CIO's Woods points out that just a few years ago people who calleddirectory assistance immediately reached a person. Now an automatedcomputer probably will do the first stages of the work, she said.
Associated Press
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