What happens when Comcast, a corporation with deep pockets and a history of hostility to unions, stonewalls in contract negotiations with a bargaining unit of 88 cable TV technicians and clerical workers in a small New Jersey city?

If you are members of IBEW Local 827 in Pleasantville, located only 5 miles from glitzy Atlantic City, you make so much noise that the surrounding populace would swear that you have 888 members. You take your issues with Comcast to the company’s customers, to the news media and even to the Comcast’s headquarters in the Philadelphia, with eye-catching, creative tactics. You construct a flashy "unofficial" website, paid for by membership contributions, to keep each other informed and reach out for support. You hold informational picket lines and rallies with a simple theme-- "We’re Not Gonna Take It!" And you win.

On July 6^th, members of Local 827 ratified a new contract with Comcast that includes an 11.4 percent wage increase over 41 months and critical protections against sub-contracting when the company moves into new telephony technologies like voice over internet protocol (VoIP).

Dave Kubert, Vice President of Local 827, who led negotiations, credits the membership of the local for the contract victory. "Comcast, he says, is a tough company to bargain with, but the members stood together and fought." Kubert also commends Rich Spieler, Local 827’s Business Agent for southern New Jersey for doing a "great job" in supporting the internal organizing of the membership.

Local 827 opened discussions with Comcast in April on the contract that was due to expire on May 31^st. The company demanded that the union agree to the elimination of 7 sick days and offered a meager 2.7 percent salary increase over 3 years.

Members of the local, who had worked without a significant raise over the previous three years, and who make roughly $7 dollars per hour less than technicians with competing companies, were outraged. Their bitterness was stoked by financial reports showing that CEO Brian Roberts and his father, Comcast founder Ralph Roberts, took home a combined $20.3 million in 2003 with an additional $34.2 million in exercised stock options.

The members’ website said: "When corporate greed is the driving force, where will this leave the workers? It leaves them making substandard wages, overworked and feeling dehumanized, being told that the offers put forth on the table are those that they should be grateful for, being told Customer First day in and day out."

While Comcast dug in their heels, and negotiators agreed to contract extensions, the local’s membership got busy. Knowing, first-hand, that Comcast had a dreadful record of customer service, they took their issues to surrounding towns of Longsport, Margate, Ventnor and Ocean City in several motorcades. Their convoys were led by a pickup truck with a huge inflatable rat, representing CEO Roberts, wearing a poster that said: "Comcast 1^st-Customers and Employees Last," signed www.local827.net. The website urged customers to write to Comcast asking them to bargain in good faith with the IBEW. The rat, followed by a cluster of vehicles and digital cameras that recorded his travels for the members’ website, eventually wove his way to Philadelphia for informational picketing at the Comcast headquarters.

Local 827 had a deep well of union support to draw from. Vice President Kubert says: "Atlantic City is a union town. This helped us to win our contract." Joining the informational picket lines were Local 827 members from Comcast in Tom’s River, New Jersey, Teamsters from UPS, unionists from Verizon and members of the Atlantic City-Cape May Central Labor Council. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and members of the CWA joined the action at Comcast’s headquarters in Philadelphia.

The new contract with Comcast includes an $850 signing bonus and an enhanced 401-k retirement plan that includes a 100 percent match by Comcast with protections against unilateral changes. Each bargaining unit member will receive 100 stock options. For workers who suffer on the job injuries, leave time is expanded from six months to one year. Contract language on vacation and bereavement pay is improved.

Currently Comcast retirees receive no company medical benefits. The contract includes language requiring the company to hold discussions with the local concerning an offer of such benefits to Pleasantville workers if Comcast covers any employees in any state in the future.

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