Some Good News At Cingular

    Check out today's front-page story in the biz section of The New York Times on the Communications Workers of America's success at organizing Cingular Wireless. The main reason for the success is obvious: Cingular has agreed to be neutral in organizing drives. Indeed, that's even more obvious when you consider that of the 225,000 workers in the wireless industry--according to the Times--just 39,000 are union, virtually all of them at Cingular.

    Here are the grafs we should all keep in mind to spread far and wide:

Cingular's wireless competitors have fought, at times fiercely, against unionization, arguing that an organized labor force would hobble their ability to move workers, cut costs and make changes necessary to compete in a high-tech industry. They often assert that unions ultimately hurt the workers they claim to protect.

But the growth of Cingular into the nation's largest wireless carrier — with a nearly fully unionized labor force — has challenged those assumptions and given a new spark to organized labor, said Harry C. Katz, dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

"The fact Cingular does well even in the face of unionization helps rebut the argument that unions aren't viable in a technologically sophisticated and dynamic industry," Mr. Katz said.

    The rest of the story is here.

    So, if you're not a Cingular customer yet (yours truly is), switch today and tell the company you are leaving you're doing so because Cingular is union--and tell Cingular why you're signing up.