Brooklyn Workers Accuse Cablevision of Rigging Union Vote

Brooklyn Cablevision workers, who have waged a two-and-a-half year contract fight with Cablevision, are accusing the company of rigging a third-party poll intended to determine whether the workers were still committed to joining the union, while the company insists the vote was fair and unbiased.

The tension between the two parties reached its boiling point on Tuesday when Cablevision CEO James Dolan paid a surprise visit to the company's Brooklyn headquarters during which he indicated that he wanted to "find out what you really want," regarding the workers' desire to join the Communications Workers of America Local 1109, according to firsthand accounts of the encounter, which were later confirmed by an audio recording of the meeting obtained by City & State.

Dolan told the workers that the company would find out their true intentions by commissioning a company, Honest Ballot Services, to conduct a confidential, voluntary, third-party poll, adding that if the vote came out in favor of unionizing, then the company would "double our efforts" to get a contract signed. If the workers voted not to unionize, Dolan said he would figure out a way for CWA to withdraw its representation of the workers, even going so far as paying off its legal fees.

"Now if you vote that you don’t want a union, I can’t make the union go away," Dolan said. "But I will go to the union and I will tell them that this is what your mind is and I will try to negotiate a way for the union to withdraw. And I am willing to go pretty far to help them do that, if they recognize that they’re not wanted here anymore."

The poll, taken Wednesday evening with the participation of 93 percent of the eligible Brooklyn employees, found that 129 workers do not want CWA representation compared with 115 who favor unionizing. According to a statement released by Cablevision, Honest Ballot Services conducted the poll at three locations in Brooklyn and certified that it was "anonymous, fair, and accurate." Cablevision also blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio for his advocacy on behalf of the Brooklyn workers, indicating that the mayor lent his support as a favor to CWA and the Working Families Party for endorsing his candidacy in 2013. 

"For the first time in nearly three years, our Brooklyn employees have expressed their feelings about the CWA in a vote," Cablevision's statement read. "Yesterday, they rejected continued CWA representation. It is time for the CWA to respect our employees’ wishes and withdraw. In addition, Mayor de Blasio is repaying a political debt to the CWA and the Working Families Party, and is advocating the union’s agenda against the wishes of our employees. Mayor de Blasio should tell the CWA and his political friends to stop blocking our employees’ rights. We call upon the Mayor, the Working Families Party and the CWA to act promptly and allow our Brooklyn employees’ voices to prevail.”

CWA District One, the umbrella union for Local 1109, released a sharply-worded rebuke of Cablevision's actions, saying that "the conduct of this election would make Vladimir Putin blush," and that the vote was illegal because of a pending ruling by an administrative law judge on multiple complaints over unfair labor practices filed with the National Labor Relations Board. 

"Under no circumstances would the NLRB permit this type of election to take place," said CWA District One Vice President Chris Shelton in a statement. "No union observers were involved. There was no security in the vote count. This bogus sham was a waste of time and money. What’s really needed is for James Dolan to sit down and bargain a fair contract that includes equal pay with other Cablevision employees.”

Workers who took the poll were displeased with the fact that Cablevision did not show them any data on the results of the election, simply telling the workers that they had lost the vote. Others complained that the person conducting the poll sat directly next to them as they responded to the questions, instead of sitting on the opposite side where they would not be able to see the screen.

Gabrielle Semel, an attorney representing CWA, said that the union had filed a complaint with the NLRB after the meeting with Dolan and is also seeking an injunction against the company. 

"Once the union becomes the collective bargaining representative, it’s unlawful for the employer to try to undermine the collective bargaining representative, and so, we’ve filed charges on that," Semel said.  

Meanwhile, the mayor's office, in response to Cablevision's accusations, released a statement saying, "Mayor de Blasio continues to stand with CWA, and finds these new allegations against Cablevison deeply troubling."

The conflict between Cablevision, CWA, and the Brooklyn employees dates back to January 2012, when Brooklyn Cablevision workers, hoping to bring their wages more in line with their competitors at other cable giants like Verizon and receive better health and retirement plans, voted 180 to 86 to join the CWA local. After the Brooklyn vote, a similar vote was conducted among Cablevision employees in the Bronx, and though that effort was defeated 121 to 43, CWA organizers accused Dolan of threatening the technicians with termination and excluding them from training and job opportunities if they voted to join the union, while also offering them raises.

Roughly a year after the initial vote, in January 2013, a group of 22 Brooklyn workers, frustrated with the glacial pace of the collective bargaining sessions, asked for a meeting after attempting to discuss their contract situation with Cablevision management. When the workers allegedly refused to go back to work after the company rebuffed their request, they were fired. The mass firing, which happened to coincide with the beginning of the 2013 campaign, attracted widespread attention from the Democratic mayoral candidates, including de Blasio, and resulted in a citywide effort to get the workers their jobs back, which they eventually did several months later. CWA also filed a number of unfair labor practice charges against Cablevision with the NLRB.

Shortly after the workers were shown the door, despite having tentatively agreed on a handful of contract issues, roughly 30 percent of the Brooklyn employees filed a petition with the NLRB to decertify from CWA, meaning that they no longer wanted union representation. But because the NLRB had found Cablevision's actions in the Bronx illegal, along with the firing of the Brooklyn workers the board filed a formal complaint. The board also charged that Cablevision was negotiating in bad faith without any intention of reaching an agreement. The complaint effectively dismissed the decertification petition until an administrative law judge makes a definitive ruling, which, according to labor lawyers, could take anywhere from three months to a year. 

From Cablevision's standpoint, the unfair labor practice charges were a tactical measure by CWA to stall the decertification, and the company has filed its own complaints against the union. The company remains unconvinced that a plurality of their Brooklyn employees still want CWA representation.

CWA has countered this skepticism by pointing to an advertisement the union ran in the Daily News in June 2013, with the names of 174 workers supporting joining the union, six fewer than the original January 2012 tally. Cablevision has disputed the accuracy of the ad, claiming that it has heard from a number of workers who say they did not authorize their names being used in the ad. 

More recently, in July, 189 workers sent signed petitions to Dolan stating that they "did not understand why Cablevision has not yet agreed to parity in wages for the Brooklyn workers." Once again, Cablevision has taken the position that these petitions do not constitute a vote, and will not be treated as such. The company added that the petition only references wages, not whether the workers still want union representation, despite the fact that the petition includes the sentence "We are sticking together with CWA to demand justice." 

Meanwhile, bargaining sessions between the two sides have continued, with roughly one session in each of the last six months. According to Cablevision, the two sides have tentatively agreed on as many as 50 contract provisions, though none pertaining to the issue of higher wages. Dolan attempted to explain his hard-line stance on giving out higher pay during the impromptu meeting on Tuesday after one worker noted that Dolan had no problem paying professional basketball players exorbitant salaries (Dolan is the principal owner of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers).

"[Basketball players] are very singular and that’s why they command the salaries that they do," Dolan said. "Now you’re skilled too ... there’s value to what you learned and value to what you do. And, yes, I’d love to see you make more money, I’d like to see us all make more money. But the way that we do that is that we become more successful. We work at putting better products and better service out there and more people who want us than want Verizon and we build the company. And the way you can make more money, the way we’d like to make it happen, you can prove yourself, you become more valuable to the company, you make a bigger contribution and you get paid more. It doesn’t just come to you because you’re sitting here."

One of the Brooklyn cable technicians at the meeting, Andre, who declined to give his last name in order to protect his job, did not buy Dolan's explanation, noting that it is difficult to deliver the kind of top-notch service that Dolan expects when the CEO does not provide his workers with the best equipment available.

"Somebody asked a question about a test meter that other [cable] systems are using which people feel we need to do a better job to service the customer and better the system, and [Dolan] said he cannot supply that because he has to go through the CWA," Andre said. "This is a tool we need to be more efficient." 

Andre has been in the thick of the fight with Cablevision from the very beginning, and was one of the 22 workers to get fired and re-hired last year. When asked what keeps him motivated to keep pushing for union representation through all of the legal battles and sniping from both sides, Andre said that both his mother and father were union members and instilled in him a fighting spirit. Andre also wants to see himself and his colleagues get paid the same wages as their competitors in Long Island, the Bronx, and New Jersey. 

"It’s a just cause, that’s what keeps me hanging on," he said. "I’m good at what I do, I live in Brooklyn, I work in Brooklyn, but Verizon workers are in the game too and they’re doing the same work and you’re asking us to do the same thing as us but we’re getting paid less. ...That’s what’s keeping me in it."

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the number of workers that sent signed petitions in July to James Dolan stating their desire for better wages and CWA representation.