Tense Battle Yields Big Contract Win for Local 1088 Members

CWA Local 1088 had already been in a heated battle with the Ocean County Board of Social Services over COVID-related health and safety issues due to unsafe staffing levels when contract negotiations were set to begin. The Board brought back 100% of the staff last June and Covid positives were breaking out in several worksites.

In addition to trying to get an agreement that would allow a significant amount of members to work from home in order to ensure their safety from catching COVID-19, a major goal of the bargaining committee was to address the huge wage disparity that had increased over time between workers hired prior to December 31, 2011 and after that date. This was due to being pressed into giving up steps at that time for new hires. It resulted in a huge difference in pay between members doing the exact same work.

Members were ready to fight back. The local invited Jim McAsey, D1 Mobe Coordinator, in to do a mobilization training with the local’s Mobe Committee and they developed a plan of attack. They ordered banners that said “We Can’t Care for Ocean County if the Board Won’t Care About Us” and members held these signs up over the signs the Board had outside their facilities that thanked their essential workers. Members demonstrated every day on their breaks and lunches with homemade signs and the local posted videos of their demonstrations on social media.

The committee organized an online petition drive to urge the Board to allow those workers who had previously been able to work from home at the outset of the State shutdown due to the pandemic, to resume doing so. In addition to members, the petition garnered a lot of signatures from the community and was submitted to the Board and County Commissioners.

Some members reached out to local community groups and were able to bring in outside support. Ken Seda of the Puerto Rican Civic Association put members in touch with local leaders in the faith community and the local chapter of the NAACP. Together with their community partners, the local coordinated a prayer vigil outside the main offices of the Board at the end of the work day. The event was livestreamed.

The local organized their members and members of the community to call in and also attend the annual reorganization meeting of the Board in person and publicly question them about the member’s Covid-related health and safety concerns. A local journalist, supportive of the local’s cause, talked to members and questioned Board management for an article in a local publication.

On bargaining days members all wore red of course, but since most bargaining sessions started as members were arriving to work at 8 am, they would enter the parking lots blowing their car horns and circling the Administration building to make sure management heard them. As negotiations continued the local began a “car alarm” campaign. Every day for 10 days straight members set off their car alarms in the parking lots at break times. Members were also outside demonstrating and the noise was tremendous.

Although they were not able to reach a work from home agreement with management, the Board arranged to make vaccines available to our workers at a convenient location. That, together with other health and safety protocols that were already put in place met our goal of creating a work environment that would keep members as safe at work as possible.

The Mobe Committee kept the pressure on while the Bargaining Committee fought hard at the table and the result was a huge win for the members that everyone was very proud to recommend. There were no concessions and the outstanding wage settlement met the local’s goal of getting them on a path to ending the wage disparity. By negotiating flat raises the first two years of the contract for workers hired January 1, 2012 forward, $1,800 dollars and $1,600 dollars respectively, members will receive increases between 5.97% and 3.29% in year one and 5.04% and 2.84% in year two. In the 3rd year of the contract they will receive 2.5%. Members on the step guide will receive their step increases in each year of the contract and members who have graduated the step guide will receive 2.25% each of the contract. In crafting the wage increases this way it has a smoothing effect that they can build on in the next contract. The contract was overwhelmingly ratified by a vote of 217-13.

Pat Self, the newly-elected president of Local 1088 said “I am so proud of what our small local was able to accomplish. We showed the power of unity and solidarity. We know we didn’t do this alone and really appreciate all the support we received from the National staff and our community partners.”