Tell me your CWA horror stories
In the past couple of weeks the union has moved into our center. There is a group of us that wants to fight unionization.
We want to hear from employees who work in Cingular centers covered by the CWA contract. Tells us the disadvantages of being unionized. Tell us the stories of how the union is not working for you!
Thanks!
We want to hear from employees who work in Cingular centers covered by the CWA contract. Tells us the disadvantages of being unionized. Tell us the stories of how the union is not working for you!
Thanks!
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guaranteed pay raises and job security aren't so bad. why so against the union? đ
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One big reason people are shying away from them is the fact that the negotiated pay scale for customer service is awful compared to what ATTWS paid. They are a giant union and they could have done much better for their CSRs.
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You have a point. I am a union CSR and I voted againist the current union contract due to the wage scale. But ON he other hand Cingular threatened to just replace us with non-union former AT&T reps if we did strike. Cingular has to much power right now. If we are going to get better pay and better jobs within the call center. We either need to be all union or no union at all.
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What cingular fails to realize is that it is cheaper up front to pay reps less, but it loses the financial gain when it loses potentially good reps after only a few months and they have to hire and train new reps. I am not saying that ATTWS made us rich, but it was nothing like the 8.xx an hour horror stories I hear. And I am certianly not saying there arent fantastic legacy orange reps out there, but like with anything else in life you get what you pay for. If your starting pay is sub-standard, you will attract sub-standard applicants. And those who arent usually take those jobs to get through a tough time while looking for further employment. What is the most scary thing is I cant be the only one who sees this. The CWA sees this and ...
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Union reps make more than u think. It is the outsourced convergys reps that are getitng screwed. I make more than 8.00 a hour I started at more than 8.00 plus benefits. You obviously have no idea what the union pay scale is for CSR's. The biggest problem in the union not the starting pay it is the increases. I get .45 cents per hour raise every six months. Everyone gets the same raise no matter the performance of the rep.
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I could be reading the pay matrix on the agreement wrong. How do you read that thing. For example, a CSR level 2 with 3 years service. What should I get out of that chart?
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And not having it performance based bugs me. What the incentive to be better than the rest?
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It does not depnd on years of expereince. It depends on a step progression system u start off on a step when u are hired and u move up from there. If u are a CSR1 and u are on step 9 and u get promoted to CSR2 u would get step 10 of CSR2.
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âšī¸ The thing about Cingular is that when a tenured rep has been there a while and doesn't move up the ladder to management then all of a sudden that person disappears. There are very few tenured reps in the call center I work in. The union didn't help us at all when our Saturday's were taken away, but if we are to be stronger I do agree that we are going to ALL have to join the CWA. So..... join the union with a knowing that it will get better with the more people that we get to support the CWA. There is truely strength in numbers and that is THE ONLY VOICE YOU GET IN THIS COMPANY!
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Marcus, the day CWA becomes non-union will be the same quarter Verizon becomes the #1 company. Many of your union brethren would be so pi**ed off they'd jump ship, myself included. Cingular needs me more than I need them.
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I am for fair treatment of reps. I am not against CWA nor am I for it. I am for the fair treatment of Cingular employees. I am for fair discipline and fair code of conduct and policies. If I feel CWA is not pushing for the same things on my behalf I say get rid of CWA.
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simplymarcus said:
I am for fair treatment of reps. I am not against CWA nor am I for it. I am for the fair treatment of Cingular employees. I am for fair discipline and fair code of conduct and policies. If I feel CWA is not pushing for the same things on my behalf I say get rid of CWA.
CWA is what keeps us from making the kinds of money that our competitors make.
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simplymarcus said:
You have a point. I am a union CSR and I voted againist the current union contract due to the wage scale. But ON he other hand Cingular threatened to just replace us with non-union former AT&T reps if we did strike. Cingular has to much power right now. If we are going to get better pay and better jobs within the call center. We either need to be all union or no union at all.
Wait just a moment...they threatened to replace you with non-union AT&T workers? Ok, that was an empty threat, seeing as if they let all the union workers go this organization would fall. Do you realize how bad service levels are now? Imagine half of the CSRs being removed from the phones nationwide...it won't ha...
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Hummm...and Cingular wonders why they score so low in customer service surveys and have a very high churn rate...If you don't care of the people that take care of the customer, it all goes downhill from there.
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crazyeaglefan236 said:
Hummm...and Cingular wonders why they score so low in customer service surveys and have a very high churn rate...If you don't care of the people that take care of the customer, it all goes downhill from there.
Amen.
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the biggest "horror" story is when members sit back and do nothing. Like not knowing the contract, not asking for representation during "talks" with managment not attending union meetings. so forth and so on. Take a look at what the landline members get paid, the work conditions and so forth. If union were so bad for the members then why is one of the major players in wireless fighting so hard to stay non-union? The union is not just some job stewards and national leadership, it's every one of the represented workers standing together voicing their opinions and demanding fair treatment, which doesn't mean getting rich quick by the way. It's a co-operative working agreement between the company and the union membership, members are represented...
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Actually the resaon the big V wants to stay non-union is cause their employees wanna stay non-union.
lets go over the plus's they have for staying that way.
1. Higher pay.
their starting pay is 25,000 for sales ours is 21,000
2. they get stock options ( VARS )
F. this rant the main thing is their company gives them all this and more and they dont have to give a UNION $ 350 a year out of their own pay.
SO WHY GO UNION ? ? ?
lets go over the plus's they have for staying that way.
1. Higher pay.
their starting pay is 25,000 for sales ours is 21,000
2. they get stock options ( VARS )
F. this rant the main thing is their company gives them all this and more and they dont have to give a UNION $ 350 a year out of their own pay.
SO WHY GO UNION ? ? ?
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well i have actually talked with v employees and the ones i talked to aint so happy but then maybe some are. the parent company is union just like bellsouth was union and mobility wasn't but thank god that changed. I've even been on a picket line in front of a v store. at&t landline was strong union and at&t wireless wasn't but now over 5000 former att wireless have gone union.
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