IBEW Local Union 1011, the Order Of Repeatermen And Toll Testboardmen (O.R.T.T), is the oldest bona fide Union in the Telephone Industry on the West Coast, with a history that is founded as far back as the 1930,s.

In 1940, after lengthy hearings before the National Labor Relations Board, the Toll Men (those employees working on the long distance equipment) in PT&T's territory were certified by the National Labor Relations Board as an appropriate collective bargaining unit. Both PT&T and the predecessor to the CWA bitterly opposed the efforts of the Toll Men to
break away from the other telephone workers and to establish their own union. In Washington-Idaho in 1944 and in Oregon in 1949 additional certifications were secured by the Toll Men in those areas and again only after lengthy hearings followed by elections conducted by the NLRB. The hearings before the Board were lengthy and tens of thousands of words of testimony under oath went into the records.

From 1940 to 1944 PT&T negotiated one contract for our California-Nevada members. From 1944 to 1949 one contract was negotiated for California-Nevada and the Washington-Idaho area. Beginning with 1949, following the Oregon certification, one contract was negotiated for all three California-Nevada and the Washington-Idaho area. Beginning with 1949, following the Oregon certification, one contract was negotiated for all three bargaining units, California, Nevada,, Washington-Idaho,, and Oregon.

In 1952, December, O.R.T.T went into negotiations in San Francisco for a new agreement. In June, 1953 negotiations were still going on with no agreement in sight. O.R.T.T leadership decided to petition the NLRB for consolidation of our three certifications into ONE. Additionally, we petitioned the NLRB to recognize O.R.T.T as a collective bargaining unit for certain employees of PT&T maintaining toll switching machines, PBX repairmen
teletype in California-Nevada. (We already represented PBX teletype repairmen in Oregon and Washington.)

PT&T immediately canceled our contracts, tore down our bulletin boards, canceled our payroll deduction of dues and refused to recognize O.R.T.T stewards, etc. Working practices were substituted for our contracts and the fight was on. We were, PT&T said, attempting to change our Units and until the matter was settled, to heck with us.

From June 1953 to late 1955, we were in litigation involving the NLRB and the California courts. At one point the Company called CWA in and signed an agreement putting all of our members in the Northern California region under the jurisdiction of the CWA. This upset the NLRB and they took the Company in the courts with the end result being that the illegal contract between the Company and CWA was negated and the Company was told to keep their hands off our bargaining unit until they decided what they were going to do. PT&T was found guilty of a mess of unfair practices and were required to post notices throughout their properties that they had been found guilty, AND WOULD KNOCK IT OFF. The IBEW and our friends in Congress worked mightily to assist us throughout the litigation.

In 1955, late in the year, our original certifications were reaffirmed by the NLRB and PT&T was told to commence negotiations for new contracts.

PT&T had to negotiate but they were badly hurt and tried their best to get even. They insisted upon negotiating separate contracts for each of the three units. They emasculated many sections of our contract including the bulleting and bidding of all vacancies including bidding on senior titles. The Board did not consolidate our units and they did not give us
the additional jurisdiction we attempted to get.

Briefly, it was only because there were a number of circumstances peculiar to toll that enabled us to break away from the other telephone workers and to establish our units. All Toll Men had to be telegraphers. All coordination now done on order wires was done by Morse code.
Radio and radio licenses were alien to local exchange personnel. All news services, Associated Press, United Press, others, and the stock market transmitted their news and stock market sales and quotations by Morse code on facilities leased from the Telephone Company. These services employed the best and most competent telegraph operators and unless a Toll Man could recognize problems with, or on the facilities, he was in trouble when the AP or stock market
folks called in to report problems.

The differences between the "Toll" and "Local" work (jurisdiction) was able to be maintained until the late 1960's, when the "T" carrier system started being installed by the
local telephone companies. The Companies started assigning this new work to the CWA. The Company's position was that these were "local" carriers and therefore should be assigned to CWA since they maintained local services and we maintained toll services. . Many, many arbitration's cases addressed these jurisdictional issues during the 60's, 70's and 80's, with few to none being settled in the favor of Local 1011. This was the start of the burring of the
lines between "Toll" and "Local" services.

Even with these problems, we (IBEW Local Union 1011) were generally able to maintain our representation (bargaining contracts, processing grievances, etc.) of the technicians on the west coast working on the installation and maintenance of long distance services (message and private line (Voice and data) in the Bell Systems Companies.

This all changed in the fall of 1982 when the parent Company of the Bell System, AT&T, took over the operation of many long distances work sites in California and Nevada. When they came in that year, not only did they take ownership of many work locations, they also reassigned some 260 of our members to CWA. We, of course, filed grievances and Board charges with the result being a compromise with AT&T in that with any future take-overs,
they would recognize us as the bargaining agent if we would back off from all further actions with the current dispute. AT&T has honored that commitment since then.

But that didn't stop Pac Bell and US West in their efforts to get rid of us (IBEW, Local Union 1011-ORTT) the "other union" (that they didn't want to deal with) in favor or the CWA. Since 1985, Pac Bell and US West have been able to, thru unit clarifications, accretions and
representation elections, to get some 2000 or so of our members re-assigned to CWA.

Despite all of that, today, we still remain in business, representing our members, bargaining contracts and processing grievances. We have a long and rich history of trying to do what's best for the membership. We have no intention of giving that up!!