[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 12, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E236-E237]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE SPRINT--LA CONEXION FAMILIAR AFFAIR: JUSTICE DELAYED, AND DELAYED 
                                 AGAIN

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 12, 1997

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, almost 3 years ago, on July 14, 1994, a 
great injustice was committed by one of the most powerful corporations 
in America--Sprint--against some of the least powerful among us. A 
union representation election was underway at a Sprint subsidiary which 
employed 177 Hispanic telemarketers who sold Sprint's long distance 
services to Spanish-speaking customers. Nearly all the workers at the 
San Francisco Sprint subsidiary, known as La Conexion Familiar ``The 
Family Connection'' [LCF], were women who had immigrated to the United 
States from Mexico and Central and South America. Many of them spoke 
only Spanish, which was no handicap in their specialized marketing 
jobs.
  When it became clear to Sprint that the La Conexion Familiar workers 
would vote to be represented by the Communications Workers of America, 
Sprint suddenly shut the office--just 8 days before their union 
election. The announcement was made over the PA system during the 
workday, and the workers were gathered together to be searched by 
guards and sent out the door. The women were so shocked and upset that 
paramedics had to be called to the scene, and one worker was even 
admitted to a hospital.
  The dreams of these workers were shattered and their jobs were 
summarily eliminated, simply because they wanted a union, and because 
they believed that in the United States, our labor laws would guarantee 
workplace democracy and the right to organize. One young woman 
described her ordeal this way at a public hearing on the shutdown held 
last year in San Francisco: ``For me, everything fell apart that day. I 
couldn't face being out of work. I started abusing alcohol. I was so 
depressed. I fought with my fiance and I yelled at my children. After 2 
years, I have another job now, but my experience at Sprint changed 
everything for me. I will always carry around the fear that I'll 
suddenly be fired for no reason.''
  Mr. Speaker, more than 2\1/2\ years later, the National Labor 
Relations Board [NLRB] finally declared that the LCF closing was an 
illegal action and ordered Sprint to rehire the workers to comparable 
jobs with full back pay. Sprint immediately appealed the decision. It 
is expected that it will take between 1 and 2 years for the NLRB to 
hear the appeal and issue a final ruling. Of course, pending the 
appeal, none of the former LCF workers will receive the back pay or the 
jobs to which they are entitled according to the NLRB ruling. By 
dragging out this case and refusing to take responsibility for its 
actions, Sprint adds another chapter in a long and unfortunate tale of 
abuses against the LCF workers.
  It was Sprint's discriminatory treatment of the LCF workers, along 
with sweatshop working conditions, that first drove the workers to try 
to seek representation. This Hispanic LCF workers were kept in a 
second-class status at Sprint--earning $7 an hour as compared to $11 an 
hour for regular Sprint telemarketers. The payment of commissions was 
arbitrary and discriminatory, and the workers complained. And Sprint 
managers restricted their visits to the bathroom, telling the workers 
to drink less water so they wouldn't have to go as frequently. When the 
workers started organizing for union representation, Sprint managers 
engaged in such blatantly illegal behavior to harass and intimidate 
union supporters that even the NLRB's investigators--investigators who 
have seen it all--expressed shock when they later reviewed the 
evidence.

  During the long and drawn out legal proceedings in this case, the 
NLRB proved--and Sprint ultimately admitted to--scores of charges of 
illegal threats to close the office if workers voted for a union, of 
coercing workers to spy on other workers, and of interrogating and 
browbeating union supporters. Sprint's treatment of the LCF workers has 
been condemned by the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, by dozens 
of my colleagues in the Congress, including the Hispanic caucus, and by 
government and labor officials in Mexico and Canada as well as in 
Germany, where Sprint is involved in a partnership with Deutsche 
Telekom.
  Mr. Speaker, through its action, Sprint has gained itself an 
international reputation as a violator of our Nation's labor laws. 
Sprint should know that pursuing endless legal appeals is an 
unacceptable business practice. Unfortunately, this is a trend that is 
growing. I would like to include in the Record for the benefit of my 
colleagues a column by the distinguished president of the 
Communications Workers of America [CWA], Morton Bahr, which was 
published in the CWA News of February 1997. President Bahr's column, 
entitled ``Breaking the Law, Business as Usual,'' provides 
documentation of increasing labor law violations--specifically the 
growing use of plant closing threats--by American corporations to 
defeat union organizing drives.
  The column follows:

                  Breaking the Law, Business as Usual

                            (By Morton Bahr)

       As philosophers and pundits ponder the breakdown of 
     morality, social values and respect for law and order in 
     America, maybe they should look at the example being set by 
     elements of corporate America, such as the Sprint Corp.
       The workers at Spring/La Conexion Familiar in San Francisco 
     were determined to organize a union. Working in what came to 
     be exposed as an ``electronic sweatshop,'' these Spanish-
     language telemarketing workers were so determined, in fact, 
     to change their conditions that they were unfazed by Sprint's 
     fierce, and illegal, campaign of threats and intimidation.
       Their support for the union seemingly only grew stronger as 
     Sprint's management team stepped up its campaign of illegal 
     coercion. Finally, Sprint did the only thing it could do to 
     crush the first incursion by a union in its long distance 
     operations. It simply shut the doors at La Conexion Familiar 
     on July 14, 1994, eight days before the union representation 
     election.

[[Page E237]]

       About two-and-a-half years later, this past December 27th, 
     the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the closing 
     violated federal law and ordered Sprint to rehire the workers 
     with full back pay.
       Sprint immediately filed an appeal of the ruling to a U.S. 
     Appeals Court. That will keep the case spinning around the 
     legal system for at least another year and a half, and a 
     Sprint spokesman already has predicted a further appeal to 
     the Supreme Court if the company loses this round.
       A remarkable aspect of this case is that Sprint openly, 
     unashamedly, admitted to more than 50 illegal violations of 
     the La Conexion workers' rights at an earlier trial before an 
     administrative law judge.
       Knowing that it would receive no more than a wrist slap for 
     its union-busting activities--creating an atmosphere of 
     surveillance of union supporters, having managers interrogate 
     workers one-on-one about the union campaign, openly 
     threatening to shut the office if they voted for the union--
     Sprint's lawyer brigade brushed off these charges and focused 
     only on the issue of Sprint's motive for the closing. That 
     was the one issue that could provide a real, costly, remedy 
     for the workers.
       And sure enough, a slap on the wrist it was for the 50 
     violations. The administrative law judge's order amounted 
     almost to a sick joke: Sprint was required to write a letter 
     to the workers, after their office was closed for good, 
     stating that it would not in the future violate their rights 
     to organize a union.
       Now, finally, a meaningful remedy has been ordered, but 
     Sprint is determined to see that justice is delayed for as 
     long as it takes. Perhaps the company hopes that some of the 
     workers will be dead, and others scattered to the winds no 
     longer to be found, by the time its legal appeals have been 
     exhausted.
       Clearly for Sprint, routinely violating labor laws is 
     viewed simply as a smart strategy to enforce its acknowledged 
     objective of remaining ``union free.'' And its associated 
     legal bills are merely a cost of doing business.
       This attitude is not unique in the corporate world--in 
     fact, it's becoming the norm today.
       A recent study by researchers at Cornell University was 
     inspired by the Sprint/La Conexion Familiar case. It was the 
     first study specifically of the impact of the threat of plant 
     and office closings on worker union drives.
       The study found that in fully one-half of all organizing 
     campaigns, as well as in 18 percent of first contract 
     negotiations, employers today threaten to close their 
     facilities. And employers follow through on the threat 12 
     percent of the time.
       This represented an increase in shutdown threats from 30 
     percent, as found in earlier studies by the same researchers, 
     to 50 percent today.
       The result, Cornell reported, is that worker organizing 
     success rates are cut from about 60 percent to 40 percent 
     when the employer threatens to close the facility.
       No wonder. What more devastating weapon could an employer 
     use to kill a union drive than to declare--``vote for the 
     union and you lose your job?'' The answer is, shut the office 
     down even before the union election, which is what has made 
     the La Conexion Familiar affair stand out as a case that's 
     being closely watched around the world.
       It's somewhat ironic--and certainly must seem so to 
     Sprint--that the La Conexion Familiar workers have emerged as 
     martyrs on the workers' rights battleground.
       Sprint clearly thought that a group of mostly immigrant, 
     mostly female workers who spoke only Spanish could be easily 
     intimidated and turned away from their union campaign.
       But they weren't intimidated, and I later learned why at a 
     public hearing on the La Conexion affair in 1995 conducted by 
     the Labor Department. One of the workers, a woman from Peru, 
     had testified and was subsequently asked by a news reporter: 
     ``If you knew you could lose your job, why did you keep 
     supporting the union?''
       The young woman replied: ``What does risking a job matter? 
     In my country, workers have risked their lives to have a 
     union.''

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