Comcast, employees clash over unions Workers accuse the company of union-busting. The cable giant says they should be happy without a third party.

In at least 15 cities, Comcast Corp. employees who once voted unions in have now voted them out. Although the company says the trend is a sign of good relations with workers, union leaders say the company has embarked on a relentless antiunion campaign.

Unions now represent 2,192 Comcast cable workers - mostly cable technicians, customer-service representatives, and warehouse workers - down from 3,500 as of November 2002, the company said. The unionized workers are fewer than 5 percent of the company's total workforce of 59,000 people in 35 states.

But the strong feelings on both sides show that these battles are about more than a few thousand workers.

Cable companies, which typically have nonunion workforces, are racing telephone companies, which are heavily unionized, to offer telephone services over the Internet.

Union leaders say they fear that this growing competition could force down wages and benefits for the 250,000 telephone workers around the nation. On the other hand, if Comcast has to pay the higher wages that are standard at unionized telephone companies, it would weaken one of its competitive advantages in the race.

Union officials say that the top Comcast technicians earn $23 an hour, while top Verizon technicians make $28 an hour.

"Who is going to set the standard?" asked Jeffrey Keefe, a professor of labor and employment relations at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

In Philadelphia, "it's about the people who work at Verizon and whether they can have middle-class lives . . . or will they need second jobs to support their families," he said.

George Kohl, director of research for the Communications Workers of America (CWA), says Comcast will stop at nothing to have its way be the standard.

"We believe that Comcast is out to crush unions," he said. "It has to do with control and paternalism run amok."

David L. Cohen, Comcast's executive vice president, said the company - as a "terrific employer" - is setting the standard. Comcast's relationship with its employees gives them "less of a feeling that they need the benefit of representation of any third party, including a union," he said.

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Most of Comcast's union employees joined the company when it bought AT&T Broadband in 2002 and vaulted the Philadelphia-based company into its position as the nation's largest cable operator. In February, Comcast made a bid to buy the Walt Disney Co., which also is heavily unionized.