Telecommunications Professionals and Technicians

The telecommunications industry, once limited to providing telephone service, is being radically transformed—often in unanticipated ways—by technological advances, industry convergence and corporate mergers. As telecommunications changes to meld with the cable, Internet, broadcast, publishing and entertainment industries, the number, skills, working conditions and careers of the employees likewise face significant changes. Observers predict that eventually there will be only four or five major global players providing communication facilities, assembling information, producing entertainment and purveying both to the world. The rest of the industry will consist of smaller companies serving a small niche market.

Observers anticipate that major information, communications and entertainment (I.C.E.) companies will seek to own or control not only the pipelines of communication, but also will seek to provide or control the content that flows through the pipeline as well. Bell Canada, for example, recently purchased the largest private television network in Canada, which provides it with content production capabilities as well as another distribution outlet.

Telecommunications Workers: An Overview

More than a million people worked for the telecommunications industry in 1998. The majority were production, construction and maintenance workers (25%) or clerical and administrative support workers (34%). Professional workers comprised only 9.2% of the industry, with the largest professional occupations being computer systems analysts, engineers and scientists (3.6%), and electrical and electronics engineers (1.8%). Technicians comprised 4.5% of the industry, with computer programmers accounting for 2.2% and engineering technicians for 2.0%. Engineers within the industry perform a wide variety of tasks, such as planning cable and microwave routes, installing equipment and, in some cases, developing new equipment. Computer software engineers – and computer scientists – design, develop and test new software for cellular and satellite systems, as well as software for voice mail, electronic mail, call waiting, etc. (Career Guide to Industries, 2000-01 Edition).

Employment in the telecommunications industry is expected to increase by 23.4% between 1998 and 2008, which is faster than the 1.5% growth projected for all U.S. industries. Strong growth in both residential and business demand for high capacity communications will lead to the expansion of telecommunications networks. This expansion will create employment opportunities for individuals with the appropriate technical skills. Professional and technical workers will be in demand, with a 71.5% increase in employment projected for systems analysts, engineers and scientists, a 35.1% increase for electrical and electronics engineers and a 19.7% increase for engineering technicians (Ibid.).

Wages and salaries are much higher in telecommunications than are typically found in private industry: non-supervisory workers in telecommunications earned an average of $756 per week in 1998, compared with $442 for all of private industry (Career Guide to Industries, 2000-01 Edition). Professionals and technicians in the telecommunications industry are relatively well-paid. According to the 2000-01 edition of the Career Guide to Industries, these high rates of pay are largely attributable to a high rate of unionization. Because union contracts largely determine patterns of wage rates, wage increases and job advancement, telecommunications workers enjoyed wages and benefits that were much higher than the national average in 1998.

Recent estimates of unionization in the industry, however, suggest that these wage gains and working conditions may be jeopardized because the percentage of union membership has not kept pace with employment growth in the industry. In 1983, for example, 55.4% of the telecommunications work force was unionized, compared with 27.7% in 1998. This decline came against a backdrop of rising employment, from 1,059,800 telecommunications workers in 1983 to 1,302,000 in 1998 (Union Membership and Earnings Data Book: Compilations from the Current Population Survey, 1994 and 1999 editions).

Trends in the Industry

The most dramatic change in the telecommunications industry has been the remarkable growth and advance of technology. In the 1970s, telephone wires carried only voice signals; today, the same wires carry detailed text, video and data transmissions, and service cellular phones, paging services and electronic mail as well. This transformation has dramatically altered both the work environment and the skills employees are expected to acquire. Unions in this industry have played a major role in negotiating and developing programs that update skills on a virtually continuous basis.

Additionally, changing technology — such as the digitalization of networks and the use of fiber optics and wireless networks — has fomented a growing apprehension among those employed in the industry. For example, directory services is one area where such concern was justified: automation has decimated this sector of the work force (Richardson, 1997). Moreover, new technologies and management restructuring create new responsibilities for those who survive the cuts and are expected to take on different tasks (Ibid.). Finally, the creation of new and non-union companies have raised concerns that future telecommunications work will not be as well rewarded as in the past. While AT&T and Bell Atlantic have a largely unionized work force, others, such as Sprint and MCI do not, nor do most of the younger, start up sectors providing wireless and cable-based services.

This is an industry that is greatly affected by both new technology and government regulation. The print, broadcast, cable, and telecommunications industries are converging, thanks to their increasing use of the same underlying technology: a digital stream of data configured as 1s and 0s that is then reconfigured to form text, images or voice. Because digital data is largely interchangeable, digitally-based entertainment, information and communications companies are rushing to market comprehensive packages of Internet sound, video, and phone services, all carried on one line supplied by one company. For the industry, the benefits of such convergence are obvious: access to new markets and new ways to exploit them, increased revenue potential and economies of scale. For the industry’s employees, the benefits may be more elusive.

Encouraging these technological advances was the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which lowered the regulatory barriers that had blocked many convergence initiatives. Prior to the Act’s passage, for example, regional "Baby Bells" were limited to offering only local telephone service, while carriers such as AT&T, MCI and Sprint handled most long-distance service. Under the Telecommunications Act, however, regional carriers are allowed to offer long distance service and — perhaps more significantly — so are cable operators while, under certain circumstances, long distance carriers will be able to provide local service.

When it was enacted, the Telecommunications Act was touted as a competitive spur: convergence would give consumers a wider choice of providers for telephone, cable information and entertainment services (Atlanta Journal and Constitution, June 28, 1998). Ironically, the opposite seems to have occurred as passage of the Act has spawned a wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions that have narrowed control in all areas of this converging industry (Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1998). Examples of such acquisitions include Bell Atlantic’s merger with NYNEX, the acquisition the Pacific Telesis Group and of Ameritech by SBC (formerly Southwestern Bell) and WorldCom’s purchase of MFS and MCI. AT&T, the nation’s largest telecommunications company purchased TeleCommunications, Inc. (TCI), the nation’s second-largest cable service provider. This combination made AT&T the nation’s largest cable television operator, as well as the largest telephone company.

Continuing the pace for new and larger combinations, Bell Atlantic Mobile, GTE wireless, and Vodaphone wireless (formerly Airtouch) merged to form the largest wireless company in the world — Verizon Wireless. Verizon has more than 27 million subscribers, twice as many as AT&T, which was the largest wireless company in the world before Verizon was created. AT&T, meanwhile, is placing its bets on cable technology to compete against the Bells for local telephone service. At the same time, high-speed data transmission is emerging as the newest and most intensely competitive battleground.

The telephone companies’ high-speed Internet technology called DSL (digital subscriber line) competes with cable high-speed access technology. However, the telephone companies have been criticized for their slow roll-out of DSL, leading experts to predict that cable technology will capture at least 50% of the lucrative high-speed Internet market in the early part of the 21st century.

What do these mergers and acquisitions mean for unionized workers in the industry? One concern has been the shifting of capital, resources and jobs into new sectors that are non-union. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has indicated its belief that wireless communications represents the major growth area for the telecommunications industry and has moved aggressively and creatively to organize within it. At the same time, CWA is moving from its base in telephone to organize thousands of workers in cable. As the traditional unionized phone companies such as AT&T, GTE, and the Bells grew so did the unions of their employees. Now that these corporations are moving into new fields such as wireless, cable, etc, the question arises as to whether they will accept or fight their unions in these new sectors. This has become a major issue for CWA, IBEW, and for such companies as AT&T and Verizon .

In order to help their members contend with the complications inherent in corporate mergers and acquisitions, unions in the industry are not only moving to organize new sectors, but also they are striving to negotiate contract provisions that provide a measure of security for their members in the traditional telephone venues. In part because of these efforts to beef up employment security and organize in new areas, the number of union jobs has actually grown at Pacific Telesis and Ameritech since their take-over by SBC.

Through negotiations, organizing and lobbying, unions in the telecommunications industry aim both to protect the interests of their members and to represent workers in the new sectors made possible by information technologies. Many of these workers will be employed as technicians and professionals.

Sources Cited

Dorning, Mike. "A Closer Look at Phone Mergers." Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1998, Business, p. 4.

Kanell, Michael E. "Telecommunications ‘convergence’ returns." Atlanta Journal and Constitution. June 28, 1998, p. O1R.

Richardson, Charley. "The Information Revolution: A Union Perspective." Washington, DC: Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, Publication #97-1, April 1997.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2000. Career Guide to Industries 2000-01 Edition. Bulletin 2503. Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2000. National Industry-Occupation Employment Matrix, http://www.bls.gov/asp/oep/nioem/empiohm.asp.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics, http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage/t01.htm.