The Alabama Telephone Company was an American independent telephone company in Northwest Alabama , operating in the mid-20th century and serving Pickens County , Fayette County , and the Haleyville area. At its peak, it was the largest telephone company in Alabama outside of the Bell System . It is best known for being the first telephone company in North America to implement 9-1-1 service.
15-581: The company was founded in 1938. In 1954, employees organized under the Communications Workers of America and held a strike for over a year. In the tenth month of the strike, the company headquarters was dynamited , in connection with a series of dynamite and shotgun attacks surrounding communication workers strikes throughout the Southern United States . The strike ended in August 1955 when
30-528: A 118-day strike against NBC , losing 200 union-member jobs, accepting a "watered-down contract", costing the union $ 700,000 a month in strike benefits, and costing strikers an estimated $ 44 million in lost wages. In 1994, NABET merged with the CWA and changed its name to NABET-CWA. In 2021, NABET-CWA helped organize two units of tech and digital workers in NPR 's Digital Media, Communications, and Audience Growth divisions as
45-587: A major union for US and Canada tech worker organizing , including organizing all non-management workers at the Hawaiʻi digital wireless carrier Mobi in 2022. Following is a partial list of contracts and strikes that the Communications Workers of America were involved in: According to CWA's Department of Labor records since 2006, when membership classifications were first reported, the total reported membership has varied greatly and unpredictably due to
60-584: A national newspaper story about AT&T 's intent to build a 9-1-1 system, company president Bob Gallagher determined to implement the system himself. On February 16, the first 9-1-1 call in North America was placed by Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite , with the phone answered by Tom Bevill at the Haleyville, Alabama police station. Alabama Public Service Commission director Bull Connor witnessed
75-630: A strike with AT&T in 1947 , the federation led by Joseph A. Beirne, reorganized as CWA, a truly national union, which affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1949. The union's Canadian members split away in 1972, forming the Communication Workers of Canada . CWA has continued to expand into areas beyond traditional telephone service. In 1994 the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians merged with
90-863: Is headquartered in Washington, DC , and affiliated with the AFL–CIO , the Strategic Organizing Center , the Canadian Labour Congress , and UNI Global Union . In 1918 telephone operators organized under the Telephone Operators Department of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers . While initially successful at organizing, the union was damaged by a 1923 strike and subsequent AT&T lockout. After AT&T installed company-controlled Employees' Committees,
105-617: The Communications Workers of America (CWA), NABET represents about 12,000 workers organized into about 35 local unions ("locals"). The union was first organized in 1934 as the Association of Technical Employees (ATE), at first covering employees involved in network television and radio; the union was created by NBC as a way to prevent its own workers from joining the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers . The ATE would soon expand to other radio networks, and by 1937, ATE also included independent radio and television stations. In 1939
120-561: The National Labor Relations Board ruled that a new election of non-striking employees should redetermine whether the company should be unionized; the union won the vote. In October, following the end of the strike, the exchange in Hamilton, Alabama was reduced to rubble by a dynamite attack. In 1966, it created a subdivision to sell cable television , which was contracted to Stromberg-Carlson . In January 1968, after reading
135-567: The ATE achieved a union shop clause. The union's name changed to NABET in 1940 and was affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1951. In 1952 Canadian radio, television and film workers were entered into the NABET fold. In 1965, NABET expanded to include workers in the film industry. In 1968, Canadian NABET locals achieved local autonomy followed in 1974 by full autonomy. These locals are affiliated with Unifor . In 1987, NABET lost
150-595: The CWA and became The Broadcasting and Cable Television Workers Sector of the CWA, NABET-CWA. Since 1997, it includes The Newspaper Guild (now renamed The NewsGuild-CWA). In 2004, the Association of Flight Attendants merged with CWA, and became formally known as the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, or AFA-CWA. In 2020 CWA launched the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) initiative to unionize tech, video game, and digital workers which has led to CWA becoming
165-855: The South" and currently operates as Frontier Midstates . In 2002, the relevant Alabama service was resold to CenturyTel of Alabama . In 2022, it was again resold to Brightspeed. Communications Workers of America The Communications Workers of America ( CWA ) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico ). The union has 27 locals in Canada via CWA-SCA Canada (French: Syndicat des communications d'Amérique ) representing about 8,000 members. CWA has several affiliated subsidiary labor unions bringing total membership to over 700,000. CWA
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#1732855341694180-626: The Telephone Operators Department eventually disbanded. The CWA's roots lie in the 1938 reorganization of telephone workers into the National Federation of Telephone Workers after the Wagner Act outlawed such employees' committees or " company unions ". NFTW was a federation of sovereign local independent unions that lacked authority over the affiliated local unions leaving it at a serious organizational disadvantage. After losing
195-421: The addition and removal of reported membership categories. As of 2014, around 27%, or a fourth, of the union's total membership are classified as "non-dues-paying retirees", and not eligible to vote in the union. The other, voting eligible, classifications are "active" (65%) and "dues-paying retired" (8%). CWA contracts also cover some non-members, known as agency fee payers, which number comparatively about 7% of
210-462: The call being answered. According to Gallagher, the motivation to beat AT&T to implementing 9-1-1 came from his father, a fire chief in West Virginia. However, the logic of having two villains of the civil rights movement as the first 9-1-1 dispatchers has been questioned. In 1975, it was purchased by Georgia State Telephone Company, which later became a subsidiary of Contel called "Contel of
225-469: The size of the union's membership. This accounts for 166,491 "non-dues-paying retirees" and 52,240 "dues-paying retirees", plus about 43,353 non-members paying agency fees, compared to 404,289 "active" members. National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians ( NABET-CWA ) is a labor union representing employees in television, radio, film, and media production. A division of
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