INTRODUCTION:
FIGHTING FOR THE DRIVER'S SEAT ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY
The flow of international capital and the privatization of telephone systems advances around the globe are part of the continuing paving of the information superhighway, a trend of the nineties which, according to Dave Newman, a technician for NYNEX, actually started in the mideighties with the historic break up of AT&T and subsequent deregulation and commodification of the industry. Newman, a CWA member from Local 1101 was a keynote speaker at the Second International Telecommunications Workers Conference. He noted, however, that this industrial reorganization is shaping up in a two sided spiral with higher profits for shareholders and fewer jobs for workers. Despite record profits by the telecommunication giants in recent years, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost or compromised.
These compelling arguments prompted over three dozen union activists from the telecommunications industry to get together in the U.S.Mexico border City of Tijuana the last weekend of October to discuss organizing strategies in hopes to at least circumvent the industry's agenda from a North American labor union perspective.
Mireya Scarone from Hermosillo, Sonora and member of Mexican Union STRM, said that education and organizing among union members and consumers is key in order to counteract the corporate advances, "This is pretty much like the promises of the nuclear age", said Scarone speaking of the information age, "if we don't harness it, it could mean disaster for many, instead of wonderland 2000." Presently, STRM and CWA are wielding an organizing drive in MaxiSwitch in Sonora, northern Mexico, one of the few, but consistent growing number of, Mexico/U.S. union organizing projects.
The conference participants agreed on an international approach to organizing starting at their home base. One of the first projects was to support the current U.S. information campaign by members of ASTTEL in their struggle against the privatization of the telephone system in El Salvador.
Participants were people from nine different unions and four organizations; TWU, CEP, IBEW, and ACT&UW from Canada; CWA and IBEW from the United States; STRM, SINATIMTEL and SINDETEL from Mexico; SUD from France; Labor Notes/TIE, TECSCHANGE and CISPES from the United States, and CILAS from Mexico.
The conference was coordinated by Labor Notes/TIE for the purpose of facilitating interaction and, most important, discussion by activists on these pressing issues. "The fact that I attended the first (TIE) conference in 94, enabled me to survive the reengineering push at SaskTel" says Gorden Young from Canadian Communications, Energy and Paper Workers union (CEP). "So, I know how important this information is for my other colleagues, too."
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