COHEN ON ISSUES FACING COMMUNICATION WORKERS

       Larry Cohen, Executive Vice President of the Communication Workers of America, told delegates to the 2002 District 6 convention that “the case for the union has never been stronger.”  Organizing, politics, and mobilizing must be linked according to Cohen as the union faces the challenge of working through the pain of large-scale layoffs announced by SBC during the conve ntion.

        US VS THEM

       At Verizen and SBC, top executives make 500 times what a CWA employee earns. The top three officers at Verizon and SBC each make more than $25 million per year. The top officer at Verizen now has a pension of $ 3 million a yeat. Yet the company has declared 4000 CWA jobs to be surplus despite a no-layoff clause by invoking an emergency clause in the contract. Somehow, Cohen noted, the company didn’t even consider whether exorbitant salaries, benefits, and perks for top executives might be trimmed if there was really an emergency.

BARGAINING TO ORGANIZE

      Praising the membership in the district, Cohen talked about the neutrality and card checks provisions that CWA has negotiated with SBC, Bell South, and Verizen. Under the agreements, phone companies have agreed to remain neutral and to recognize the union as bargaining agent if a majority of workers sign authorization cards. At Wireless Xingular, the agreements have led to 17,000 CWA jobs. In 2001, a card check agreement with Bell South led to 8,000 new jobs. At Verizen, although a neutrality agreement exists on paper, the company hasn’t followed through. CWA has documented many instances of anti-union remarks by Verizen management.

HIGH ROAD VS. LOW ROAD

     “There is a high road and a low road for every job,” Cohen declared. He used the example of customer service work. More than 130,000 CWA members work as customer service representatives. Each October, the CWA highlights the high road approach for these jobs through posters, buttons, and other educational materials . Under the high road philosophy, customer services reps are given authority to solve problems rather than just reading from scripts. They are given “time to breath.” They are able to use an ethical, reasonable approach to sales.

      The low road to customer service was exposed in a recent Chicago Tribune article, Cohen said. AT&T has contracted out customer service to a company in New Delhi, India. Although AT&T brags about a modern facility, no-one from AT&T management has visited the facility. What the company really likes is the cost--about $3000 per year per employee. The Tribune reported that the New Delhi employees are instructed to use American names and to tell customers that they are in Denver, Phoenix, or other US cities. Needless to say, the customer service reps in India are not empowered to solve problems. And, although the India reps are well-educated, there are real difrences between American English and Indian English.

     Cohen said that “if you take CWA out of the picture, what will prevent all customer service jobs from going to India.”

About Larry Cohen

Executive Vice President, Communication Workers of America

Larry Cohen has served as Executive Vice President of the Communications Workers of America since 1998, when he was elected to that office by the CWA convention. As Executive Vice President, he has national responsibility for education and training, organizing, mobilization, international affairs, civil rights and health and safety. He serves on the union's three-member executive committee and strategic planning and budget committee, and chairs the executive board committees on appeals and organizing.

Cohen is recognized as one of the most visionary, innovative and effective leaders in the labor movement. He has built one of the most respected organizing programs in the country -- a program which currently has more than 100 local CWA organizers throughout the eight Districts. During his more than 25 years with CWA, Cohen has helped lead organizing campaigns that have added more than 160,000 CWA members.

Collective Bargaining

Throughout his career, Cohen has chaired more than 100 contract negotiations in both the public and private sectors, including a regional first agreement with Cingular Wireless covering more than 3,000 workers.

He is a leading expert in card check recognition bargaining and had responsibility for the break-through card check recognition agreement reached with Verizon during the 2000 strike, a comprehensive agreement with Cingular Wireless, as well as similar work at AT&T.

Cohen was one of the first to recognize the changing nature of telecommunications through the convergence of video, voice and data technologies, and the importance of unifying unionized workers in these sectors. He has negotiated five affiliation agreements with national AFL-CIO unions adding more than 150,000 members.

Cohen started CWA's mobilization program and was appointed the union's first national mobilization coordinator. He authored the mobilization resolution adopted at the 1988 CWA Convention that outlined the components of mobilization and kicked off a national membership mobilization effort that proved critical in the 1989 Regional Bell System bargaining.

Since then he has continued to lead countless successful mobilization campaigns in all parts of the union. CWA's mobilization program is well known worldwide and is a model for other union efforts.

International Solidarity

Executive Vice President Cohen has devoted considerable time to broadening and strengthening the solidarity of the labor movement internationally. He has built on-going formal alliances with telecom unions in Puerto Rico, England, Germany and Mexico, and successfully united unions globally against the WorldCom/Sprint merger.

In 2001 he was elected President of the UNI World Telecom Committee. The telecom committee represents more than 3 million workers at the world's largest telecom companies, including Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, Telemex-Mexico and NTT-Japan.

Social and Economic Activism

Based on his long held belief that unions must unite with other like minded groups in order to further our economic justice agenda, in 1987, Cohen founded Jobs with Justice, a national network of local coalitions uniting unions, community, religious and civil rights groups around economic justice issues.

Since its formation, Jobs with Justice has grown and now consists of 42 local coalitions in 35 states. Cohen serves on the Jobs with Justice national planning board and its three-member administrative committee.

CWA Roots

Cohen started his union activism while an unrepresented state worker in New Jersey where he lead the successful organizing drive which brought 36,000 state workers into the union. In 1980 he was appointed a staff representative and given the responsibility of forming and servicing eight new CWA locals. He was promoted in 1982 to New Jersey Area Director, and again in 1985 to Assistant to the CWA Vice President for District One. In 1986 he was called on to serve as assistant to the CWA President, a position he held until his election as executive vice president in August 1998.

A native of Philadelphia, Cohen and his wife Vicky have two daughters.

Other Activities

Founding Chair of New Jersey Citizen Action, which became the largest statewide coalition of labor, religious and community groups and a major force for tax reform and divesting state investments in South Africa.
Served on New Jersey State Tax Commission from 1985-88 after successful campaign to change the state's flat income tax to a progressive one.
Elected first Vice President of New Jersey Industrial Union Council from 1982-1986.