Phone company accused of falsely claiming union label

Something about the sales pitch made Judy O’Connor suspicious. Pat Edwards, a sales representative for Advanced TelCom Group (ATG), was trying to sell phone and Internet service to a labor organization, saying his company is a union provider. But when O’Connor, executive secretary-treasurer of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council (NOLC), asked for details, Edwards hesitated. He gave her a list of unions representing workers at General Electric (GE), ATG’s parent company.

O’Connor immediately called Madelyn Elder of Portland-based Communication Workers of America Local 7901, to check out the claim.

Elder, whose union represents workers at Qwest and AT&T, had never heard of ATG and wasn’t aware of any union contract with the company.

Then Local 7901 got a call from member Jerry Landis, a Qwest technician who’d been dispatched to install ATG’s DSL Internet service at the Bakers Union and Carpenters Local 2154 offices. Apparently Edwards’ pitch was working.

Local 2154 Financial Secretary Brad Johnson said Edwards told him the company is a union shop — and can offer telecom services at a 50 percent cost savings. Edwards showed Johnson a list of other unions that had signed up. Johnson was sold.

The trouble is … there’s no indication ATG is union-represented. Based in Santa Rosa, California, ATG has 20,000 small business customers in four Western states. The company was in bankruptcy until GE bought it in May 2003 for $15.3 million.

GE is a classic conglomerate, involved in everything from jet engines to power generation, financial services to plastics, medical imaging to news. ATG is now a unit of GE Vendor Financial Services, part of GE’s Commercial Finance Division.

It’s true that GE has union contracts – covering as many as 21,000 workers in 12 AFL-CIO unions.

However, Elder said she called around and found no union that claimed to represent ATG’s workers.

Contacted by the Northwest Labor Press, Edwards maintained he’d said nothing misleading, and averred that ATG is “union” because its parent company, GE, has contracts with various unions.

But to union leaders, who maintain an ethic of supporting unionized businesses, a non-union unit of a company that has union contracts in other units does not constitute a “union shop.”

NOLC plans to invite Edwards, the ATG sales rep, to defend the union claim at its April 12 Executive Board meeting. If he fails, the labor council may decide to place ATG on its Do Not Patronize List.

Johnson, for one, said Local 2154 plans to cancel the contract if the union claims prove false.

In the meantime, Elder assures, the phone and Internet service Qwest provides is sold, installed and maintained by her members.

“If you buy it from Qwest, you’re buying it from a union-represented salesperson,” Elder said. “Quite frankly, my members are hurting and we need the work.”

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