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Cambridge, Mass. City Council Supports Workers Rights at Comcast

February 10, 2011

Even as Comcast has bombed with so many customers and workers, the company has been a favorite of all too many elected leaders in cities and towns across the nation. There’s no stinginess when Comcast comes knocking on the door of city hall asking for a franchise agreement to set up its network and sell its services. Free perks can talk louder than customers, workers and unions.

But in Cambridge, Mass., one city council is talking back. On Jan. 31, the Cambridge City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting strong workers’ rights language in the city’s next cable TV agreement with Comcast. The city’s previous 10-year contract for cable and Internet services expired last December. The resolution urges Comcast to comply with the National Labor Relations Act and all applicable state and federal wage and hour laws. 

The resolution also urges the city’s Cable TV, Telecommunications and Public Utilities Committee to include language in the renegotiated agreement with Comcast to:

Encourage a healthy relationship with its employees by respecting their right to organize and to bargain collectively with their employer, and to engage in other protected, concerted activities to improve their wages and working conditions.

Cambridge resident and Verizon technician Glenn Dansker spoke forcefully in favor of the resolution:

I have worked for Verizon for 26 years and have always been grateful for the support I’ve received from my union, IBEW Local 2222.  This language will encourage Comcast to respect their employees’ right to organize, to allow their employees to bargain collectively and to respect workers’ rights.

Cambridge City Council member Lelund Cheung said:

[The resolution] is the minimum we can ask.  I know Comcast can afford it because they charge all of us too much.

Last December, The Electrical Worker featured a story on the activities of workers at a Comcast facility in central Massachusetts to join Middleboro Local 2322. After signing up workers, Local 2322 invited leading lawmakers, including Rep. Stephen Lynch, Fall River Mayor William Flanagan and other community leaders to publically reconcile the list of Comcast employees with the percentage who had signed union authorization cards.  The Electrical Worker story said:

Workers decided to pursue public support for majority sign-up instead of going to the National Labor Relations Board for a formal election because Comcast is known for dragging out the election process and punishing pro-union workers through illegal firings and harassment—busting the union through a combination of fear and delay.