Picket lines at the Dacoma Street SBC offices here were spirited and upbeat May 21-22. The unionists made clear their opposition to company demands to boost what workers must pay for health care and the bosses’ ongoing drive to outsource work to nonunion contractors. Many workers driving by honked to show their support, including an especially enthusiastic response from many FedEx truck drivers.

“It’s outrageous they want us to pay so much for co-payments and deductibles,” said Leatha Spencer, 43, a member of CWA Local 622, who has worked for the company for 24 years. “They’re boosting everything—co-pays for doctors, prescriptions, emergency room visits. I’m out here because I believe in our union.”

The company is proposing “to increase health-care co-payments from $20 to $60,” said CWA member Blanca Lancaster. “I am a mother with four kids. Do you know what that will cost me to take them to the doctor? I can’t take this.”

San Antonio-based SBC is the country’s second-largest local phone provider, serving 13 states: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin. Workers on strike include operators, linesmen, engineers, clerical workers, installers, and service representatives. This is the first walkout by the CWA against SBC since 1983, when unionists struck for three weeks.

The union called the strike after negotiating with SBC for nearly three months without reaching an agreement. The current contract expired April 4.

“The company demanded an increase in insurance co-pays and prescriptions and they wanted to end or scale back certain insurance benefits for retirees,” stated Jackie Vallair at the picket line here. “They also offered 2 percent lump sum payments for two of the years of the contract. The union demanded the 2 percent be rolled into our base pay. This is going on while the president of SBC made nearly $20 million last year alone.”

“The company made $8.5 billion in profits last year alone,” added Yolanda Reed. “Now they want to cut our benefits and then cut our jobs. The company offered a five-year contract with only three years of job security. We said no!”

A particular thorn in the side of many of the workers is that the company is also demanding that retirees now start paying for their monthly health insurance premiums, which up until now had been covered by the company. “It’s the retirees who fought for and won the benefits we now have,” stated Shantay Bradley, 27, who has worked for SBC for four years. “It’s unfair to take this away after the sacrifices they’ve made.”

Another big issue in dispute is outsourcing of work by the company and its refusal to allow union members access to better paying high-tech jobs at SBC.

A May 19 news release issued by the union said that “CWA members have lost 29,000 jobs at SBC over the past three years.” Many of these jobs are now being done by lower paid nonunion workers through subcontractors, noted several workers on the picket line. A fact sheet distributed by the CWA calls for “making sure all new jobs are union jobs; bringing under contract the work currently being done by management; [and] bringing back work that has been contracted out.”

Eva Marron, a union shop steward who has worked for the company for 33 years, stated, “We want access to those jobs. If we don’t have this we won’t have a union.”

In California, where SBC employs more than 17,000 people in the Bay Area alone, thousands of unionists picketed the SBC offices May 21. This included two busloads of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) who came to express their solidarity. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “About 100 union members chanted, blew whistles and held signs outside SBC’s 10-story office on Webster Street in downtown Oakland. Some CWA workers erected mobile pickets, following managers as they repaired phone lines around the region.”

Leslie Eisley, who has worked for SBC in California for eight years, told Militant reporters that the company “is asking for too much. They’re not meeting us halfway. It’s important to take a stand now or in the future we could lose everything.” He added, “There have been scabs going in but the retirees aren’t taking the jobs they’re offering.”

Jacquie Henderson and Tom Leonard in Houston, and Chessie Molano and Laura Anderson in San Francisco, contributed to this article.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home