Public Employee Press

Local 1320 takes its fight for a new contract to cyberspace

You can now find Local 1320 President James Tucciarelli talkin’ union in cyberspace.

The work of the Sewage Treatment Workers and Senior STWs in Local 1320 is featured on a new YouTube video that is part of the local’s campaign to win a new contract.

“YouTube is a way of getting around the mainstream press and to get out our message unfiltered,” Tucciarelli said.

Tucciarelli contrasted the opportunity to get free media on YouTube with the anti-labor bias of the mainstream media, noting that the local newspapers ignored a massive demonstration against budget cuts held right in front of City Hall on March 5 by unions and community groups.

Local 1320 members are fighting a long-term battle with the city to win a raise that will make their pay comparable to private-sector blue-collar workers.

The YouTube video is the local’s latest tool in its seven-year contract struggle, which has included mobilizing members, technical studies, heated negotiations, a media campaign and a boisterous demonstration at City Hall in November. The local and the city are at odds over the findings of a report by the comptroller that would establish the new wage rate of Local 1320 members.

Tucciarelli worked on the YouTube video with Public Employee Press Photographer Clarence Elie-Rivera.

The video started out as a project for a class Elie-Rivera is taking at the New School, where he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in media production. Realizing the potential political and public relations value of the 6-minute video, Tucciarelli and Elie-Rivera decided to post it on YouTube, where more than 600 viewers watched it in the first two weeks after it was posted May 11.

The video is titled “NYC Sewage Treatment Plant Workers Local 1320 Fight for Fair Contract.” You can access it by simply typing in “Local 1320” in the YouTube search box.

Elie-Rivera gave the video a humorous and folksy quality by using footage from free-use Internet sites — including a clip of people on the beach and a toilet with a flushing sound — to describe how Local 1320 members process sewage to keep New York City from becoming a giant hazardous-waste site. STWs staff 14 wastewater plants, which clean up the 1.4 billion gallons of sewage that the city’s 8 million residents discharge daily.

The video also has a hard-hitting and moving documentary style as Tucciarelli describes the members’ work and speaks movingly of how the city’s refusal to settle the contract dispute is squeezing them
economically.

“With everybody and their grandmother using computers, cell phones and personal digital assistants, it’s more and more important that unions take advantage of resources like YouTube,” said Elie-Rivera, who spent six weeks on the project. “The success of the Obama presidential campaign showed how important the Internet is for mobilizing.”