Bal Harbour, Fla.
Verizon Communications, Inc., a publicly traded company with 2003 profits of $3.1 billion, is the largest local telephone company in the United States. There are over 80,000 unionized employees at Verizon Communications, Inc. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodaphone Group, is the industry leader in the telephone wireless industry.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have had a mature collective bargaining relationship with Verizon Communications, but the company has steadfastly fought against employees of Verizon Wireless who attempt to organize.
With over 82,000 employees, revenue in 2003 of $18.35 billion, and more than 21 million subscribers, Comcast Corp. is the largest cable company in the United States. Based in Philadelphia, Comcast does business in over 34 states through its operation of broadband cable networks and the provision of programming content. The company's content businesses include majority ownership of Comcast Spectacor, Comcast SportsNet, E! Entertainment Television, Style, The Golf Channel, Outdoor Life Network and G4.
Comcast controls over 30 percent of the cable industry. It has attempted a hostile takeover of the Walt Disney Company that, if successful, would create a $140 billion media goliath that would control a significant part of what we see on TV, in the movie theaters, and on the Internet. At the same time, Comcast has lowered the bar for safety, wages, consumer service and labor relations in the cable industry.
In 2001, Comcast acquired AT&T Broadband, which had thousands of unionized employees. Comcast promised to bargain rapidly and reach contracts in good faith. Instead, it embarked on a carefully orchestrated campaign to destroy workers' organization at the workplace. During union organizing drives, Comcast has developed sophisticated internal union-busting teams and has harshly disciplined union supporters, firing some outright. Numerous charges have been filed against Comcast with the National Labor Relations Board.
Comcast's anti-union practices include: 1) using all its resources to stop union organizing efforts; 2) refusing to reach agreement on first contracts; 3) refusing to honor existing collective bargaining agreements; 4) prompting decertification elections; and 5) using intimidation, inducements and harassment to win decertification elections. It is an aggressively anti-union corporation.
The AFL-CIO supports the CWA and IBEW in their efforts to help workers employed at Verizon Wireless and Comcast Cable in their efforts to organize a union free from management intimidation, threats and interference. The AFL-CIO urges all its affiliated unions and state and local councils to endorse the organizing campaigns at Verizon Wireless and Comcast and to pursue all possible legal avenues to support these campaigns, including providing assistance on organizing, contract negotiations and in building coalitions with community and consumer organizations. The Federation will continue to make Verizon Wireless and Comcast a focus of its Voice@Work initiative to expose to the wider public the companies' shameful tactics.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council further urges all of its affiliated unions to:
- Buy wireless products from Cingular, not Verizon Wireless, until workers at Verizon Wireless are fully able to exercise their right to choose a union.
- Support efforts by the AFL-CIO and its affiliates to limit Comcast's growth in control over media content.
- Support efforts to call on elected officials to condemn the anti-collective bargaining policies of Comcast and Verizon Wireless.