We Salute The Victory of CWA 1109 workers over Cablevision in NYC.

January 30th, 2012

In a momentous event - some thirteen years of hard struggle in the making, CWA, Local 1109, with the backing of local politicians and the community, won a hard fought campaign to unionize Cablevision installers in Brooklyn, NY.

Since less than 5% of these workers are organized across the United States, this victory for 282 workers signifies a solid breakthrough on the part of strategically smart and deeply dedicated organizers. In the last days of the fight the call went out to supporters of the 99% fight and members of Occupy Wall Street. These groups showed how solid community support and the possibility of widespread public outrage over unfair working conditions can help unions in their battles to defeat the multi-million dollar anti-union campaigns of large corporations. This bitter anti-union effort was led by:

"Cablevision leads the Cable TV industry in average monthly revenue per subscriber of $153.97. And outgoing COO Tom Rutledge made $28 million in 2010, about twice the combined pay of the 282 technicians in Brooklyn.  Rutledge’s $28 million is over 600 times the average technician’s pay.  Despite $361 million in profits, Cablevision paid no federal income taxes in 2010. 

We salute all those who were involved.  We thank our CWA brothers and sisters for their fight and the information quoted above. Read more about it here: http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/cablevision_workers_triumph_brooklyn_technicians_vote_to_unionize#.TyjRHiNj_NU