Former Spectrum Strikers Sue Union
Spectrum Strikers pose outdoors a Time Warner Cable facility in New York Metropolis in 2017.
Practically six years in the past, round 1800 cable technicians based mostly within the New York Metropolis space went on strike in opposition to Constitution-Spectrum, who they accused of union-busting within the years following Constitution Communications’ acquisition of Time Warner Cable.
Rallies have been held; politicians stopped by. Because the months and years wore on, employees have been confronted with less-than-ideal choices to maintain themselves and their households.
Some strikers drove part-time for Uber to make ends meet, or selected to briefly or completely change to a different division or service sector of their union — leaving employees who earned $35 an hour as skilled technicians incomes simply $18 an hour of their new entry-level roles, or ready in lengthy traces for few obtainable positions in better-paying electrical specialty areas.
Then, this summer time, after greater than 5 years on strike in opposition to Spectrum, remaining strikers all of the sudden heard that the Worldwide Brotherhood of Electrical Staff (IBEW) Native 3, their union, had formally ended the strike and reached a settlement with Constitution-Spectrum.
Staff additionally realized that Native 3 had obtained $100 million or extra from the cable big that may be put into a number of IBEW Native 3 pension funds.
Now, a bunch of former strikers are suing their union over its illustration throughout this combat with Spectrum, and over what precisely occurs to that cash.
Tracey Harris, the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff and a long-term Spectrum striker, defined in an interview that she and her fellow employees have been “irate” once they noticed the chips fall (so to talk) as they’ve accomplished after so a few years of wrestle.
“After 5 years, you’ll hope that some (financial) resolve would come. We have been additionally actually upset that they didn’t tell us firsthand; some folks obtained a letter, however plenty of us discovered on Fb.”
Again within the mid 2010s, when Constitution-Spectrum absorbed Time Warner Cable, “They wished to dismantle the union solely as a result of they solely had two locations that have been unionized: Hawaii and NYC.”
Based on Harris and different former Spectrum technicians, the corporate then proceeded to attempt to break up its unionized division “in a spot the place most individuals wouldn’t even fathom they’d attempt it: right here in New York.”
“That is New York Metropolis; this can be a union city,” Harris added. “How is it that Native 3 allowed them to come back in and bust a union?”
IBEW Native 3 was reached out to for remark, which shall be included right here if and when obtainable.
