“I Know What a Big Difference It Makes When You Don’t Have to Be Afraid Anymore”
Virginia
Sharon Harrison
My name is Sharon Harrison and I’ve worked as a customer service representative for the company now known as AT&T Mobility since August 2003 in Lebanon, Va.When I was growing up, my father was a coal mine operator in West Virginia. Some of the mines were unionized, some weren’t. I never really knew the difference, or understood what it meant to work someplace where unions were the enemy -- not until I started my call center job.
The company, which was then AT&T Wireless, wanted nothing to do with the union. They didn’t want employees to have a voice at work.
We had no say about anything, not even suggestions for improvements that could have helped us and our customers. Every day was a new round of harassment and intimidation.
Favoritism was a big problem. Raises didn’t depend on your job performance, they depended on whether your manager liked you. I’d only been there a few months and was ranked the number-one call center representative. But that didn’t stop a manager from callously telling me, “I can get rid of you for any reason.”
That helped me decide to join a union organizing drive in 2004. It wasn’t successful, but the next year Cingular Wireless took over the company. They had made an agreement with the Communications Workers of America to stay neutral and to recognize a union if a majority of workers signed cards.
Because of that agreement, we didn’t have to be afraid that managers would retaliate against us for trying to organize. We talked to our coworkers before the call center opened, during breaks, lunches and after shifts to educate them about the benefits of a union -- better pay and benefits, lower healthcare costs, no more discrimination, harassment and intimidation, seniority rights and a grievance procedure. A majority of us signed cards and we won a great victory in September 2005 when we got recognition.
Now I’m fighting for the Employee Free Choice Act, because all workers deserve to have the same chance I did to join a union, if that’s what they want to do. I know firsthand what a big difference it makes when you don’t have to be afraid anymore to stand up for your rights at work.