Related Articles
Related Articles
Charter Employees Communicate Desire for Union December 2001 IBEW Journal In Somerset, Kentucky, 79 employees of a large national cable television company, Charter Communications Inc., voted on October 3 for representation by IBEW Local 369, Louisville. Local 369 conducted a wall-to-wall campaign for all hourly employees of Charter in a 13-county rural area of Kentuckyoutside installers, system technicians, customer service representatives, service and repair technicians, warehouse workers and data processing personnel. It was a tough, challenging organizing drive. The company brought in a fleet of union-busting attorneys out of New York to fight the organizing effort, but people here really stayed together and we won, said Local 369 Assistant Business Manager Bill Callahan. Of course thats only the beginning. Now we have to negotiate the first agreement. Before the election, Charter held a lot of captive audience meetings where they showed employees anti-union videos presented by a union-busting outfit, said Assistant Business Manager Robert Robby Akin, who is based in the Lexington satellite office of Local 369. The organizing effort got under way in May 2001, said Business Manager Stephen Silliman, who praised the hard work and unity of all involved. He noted that Assistant Business Managers Akin and Paul Bell, in particular, put in a lot of hours and dedicated effort on the campaign. Some 14 IBEW local unions represent employees of Charter Communications nationwide. Charter is the fourth largest broadband communications business in the United States. A Fortune 500 company with some 16,700 employees and 6.4 million customers in 40 states, it is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Charter began as a traditional cable television company, and now offers digital cable TV, video-on-demand, interactive video programming, and high-speed Internet access.
|
Cable TV Company Workers Vote IBEW
|
