In Fairfield, New Jersey, 74 workers recently won unionization despite a vicious anti-union campaign waged by their employer, Comcast. This is the first working-class victory against the massive cable company in years.
As the organizing drive began, wages were cut from $25 to $18 an hour for the most experienced workers. Starting wages are only about $12 an hour, and 401(k) and health care benefits are in jeopardy.
Steve Smith, an organizer with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, accurately noted, “The money is there, it’s just a matter of what they want to spend it on—and it’s not the workers.”
CEO Brian Roberts makes $40.8 million a year while Comcast itself made $3.6 billion last year.
During a period of economic crisis, workers can be hesitant to stand up to the bosses’ abuses, especially in the beginning of a crisis when Wall Street leads the anti-worker charge to attempt to shift the economic burden of the crisis onto labor. The victory of the Comcast workers in Fairfield shows that even during a period of hardship and anti-union aggression workers can win when they fight back
