The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has rekindled its attempts to form a union at Sitel, a telemarketing operation in south Asheville. Coverage in the Mountain Xpress laments the low levels of unionization and failure to embrace economic fallacies, the trepidation due to a lack of awareness.
But all that may be changing in the wake of major setbacks for organized labor in Wisconsin and elsewhere, local union officials say.
According to John Murphy, who is a regional organizer for the IBEW:
The reality is, what we do is America: Unions built America.
The drive to unionize is reportedly spurred by insufficient restroom stalls and micromanagerial practices like banning the discussion of corporate affairs on social media. Allegedly management started issuing threats when the idea of unionizing was first percolating. A lawsuit reportedly hushed that. (He said, he said.)
