Contractor Chaos:

The United States is undergoing a boom in broadband deployment, bolstered by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which will see a $65 billion investment to connect everyone in America to reliable and high-speed internet service.^[1] As the nation’s largest fiber provider, AT&T is already benefiting from this investment^[2] and expanding the reach of its fiber locations.^[3] At this critical juncture, AT&T should be investing in its highly-trained technician workforce and listening closely to its technicians who intimately understand the field operations and its weaknesses. Instead, AT&T has shed 45% of its workforce in the seven years since the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act.^[4]

A Communications Workers of America (CWA) survey of over 250 AT&T technicians across Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas suggests a recurring and systemic pattern of AT&T utilizing contractors that deliver poor work quality that significantly disrupts the ability of its directly-employed technicians to efficiently, effectively, and safely perform their job.

• 77% of AT&T technicians surveyed report being impacted by contractor quality issues at least weekly, with more than 1 in 3 experiencing a daily impact;
• 65% report having to re-do contractor work because it was not up to standard^[5];
• Over 65% have had to return to job sites more than once to address problems related to poor quality contractor work;
• Nearly 80% say their work assignments take more time to complete than they should, as a result of contractor quality issues; and
• Nearly 75% believe contractor quality issues are negatively impacting AT&T customer retention.

The survey findings were validated through a field investigation of contractor work, occupational safety records, and news reports.

As AT&T looks to expand its fiber footprint, CWA recommends that the company work collaboratively with its technician ranks to re-evaluate its use of contractors for critical deployment work, given the impact technicians believe it is having on the company’s field operations efficiency and customer satisfaction and to better align with the company’s own Environment, Health and Safety Policy. It is also clear to the surveyed technicians that AT&T’s current deployment protocol and timeline expectations do not adequately account for the impact of contractor quality issues, which should be addressed with concrete actions from the company. AT&T technicians and CWA look forward to working with the company to make its future in fiber even more successful than the last decade.

AT&T’s decision to utilize contractors that reportedly perform substandard work can result in serious negative outcomes for the public and local communities. Reports and government documents suggest that some AT&T contractors have failed to adhere to AT&T specifications, protocols, and allegedly failed to comply with state and local laws. A basic news scan of AT&T broadband’s deployments captures dozens of articles that highlight disgruntled homeowners, as well as local elected officials and staff who reported being negatively impacted by AT&T’s contractors’ poor work quality and performance.

In one particularly pronounced example, in July 2021, the City of Lawrence, Kansas issued a cease and desist order to AT&T and its contractors for allegedly engaging in “continuous reckless, illegal, and discourteous behavior within the City.” This cease and desist order came after the City received numerous complaints from constituents, public utility companies, and even AT&T’s own admission of its conduct. The City of Lawrence’s Cease and Desist order alleged that AT&T’s conduct of “[w]orking without having utility locates being properly performed[]” constituted a “direct violation of State of Kansas Law.” AT&T and its contractors’ alleged recklessness caused city residents to be without service and other utility companies to perform emergency work to correct the issues.[17]

As news reports show, AT&T’s fiber deployments are often plagued with recurring incidents to homeowner yards and properties^[18]and underground utility hits.^[19]CWA-represented technicians often raise concerns about contractors’ substandard work that can contribute to right-of-way and underground incidents. While shoddy contractor work can have serious impacts on the public, it can also directly impact the day-to-day work conditions of AT&T’s directly-employed technicians.

AT&T technicians take pride in the high quality work standards they are trained to meet and deliver to customers. The nonunion contractors that AT&T increasingly rely on to build its broadband network often fail to meet the specifications and standards demanded of the company’s direct employees. When deployment work is subpar the negative outcomes fall on customers, localities, AT&T technicians, and the AT&T brand. The survey results described below suggests that substandard contractor work can lead to delayed deployments for customers, field operations inefficiencies, including the re-doing of already-paid-for work and redundant truck rolls, and high amounts of stress for technicians leading to burnout, which can disrupt critical workforce staffing. As one AT&T employee responded in the survey, “It’s a defeating feeling when we are told to follow CODE in our organizations, but contractors don’t adhere. Care, Own it, Deliver, Exceed expectations.”

AT&T introduced the CODE initiative in 2019 to provide a framework to empower its field technicians to make good decisions that best serve the customer. AT&T believes that field operations are a crucial part of the customer experience.^[20] Customers expect to know when their technician is going to arrive, how long the job will take, when they can expect service to turn up or resolution of their issue, and that their residence will be cared for properly by the technician. To help achieve this goal, AT&T introduced its Dispatch Learning Engine in 2018 to optimize schedules for its techs, minimize drive time, and maximize the number of jobs they are able to see everyday.^[21] Yet, the survey results suggest that AT&T’s nonunion contractor workforce may be undermining the company’s efforts to be as efficient as possible.^[22] 
 

Seventy-seven percent of survey respondents report being impacted by contractor quality issues at least weekly, with more than 1 in 3 experiencing a daily impact. Describing one of their biggest concerns about the quality of work done by contractors, one respondent said, 

“You cannot substitute for experience. It takes many years to be good at this job. You cannot just hire the cheapest contractor to do the work. It shows everyday, to us technicians and to our customers, that AT[&]T is cutting corners on quality.”

Technician reports of shoddy or substandard work quality by contractors cover a range of problems that can lead to the unnecessary or premature degradation of the network, damage to rights-of-way, service disruptions, or dangerous conditions for workers and the public. The shoddy work reported in CWA’s survey of technicians includes: disruption of already-active above ground service lines, underground utility strikes, improper placement of network infrastructure in the right-of-way or on customer property, failure to install critical infrastructure components such as terminals, lack of sealing to protect network infrastructure against external elements, safety issues arising from improper grounding or bonding of the network, and failure to restore customer premises to original or improved appearance.^[23]

AT&T technician respondents report delays and inefficiencies in the use of their time and company resources resulting from shoddy contractor work. Asked about their biggest concerns regarding the quality of work carried out by contractors, based on direct experience, a respondent said, “Poor craftsmanship causes jobs to be delayed and possible missing of commitment dates. It can also put the public, technicians and contractors themselves in unnecessary harm's way. It costs extra money because when the technician has to take time to correct contractor issues the company is paying twice for the job to be done.” The survey bears out these comments:

• Sixty-five percent of respondents reported having to re-do contractor work because it was not up to standard.^[24]
• Similarly, more than 65% have had to return to job sites more than once to address problems related to poor quality contractor work.
• Nearly 80% say their work assignments take more time to complete than they should, as a result of contractor quality issues.
   

As one technician noted, 

“The company’s numbers game doesn’t account for the amount of returns that each tech has to do because of [shoddy] work.”

Survey respondents emphasized that direct employees are required to oversee and re-do contractor work on a regular basis: “We have to be on site the whole time the contractor is working just to make sure that job is done correctly. If you're not there when work is being done you have to recall [the] contractor to dig back more or they exposed [the] wrong cable.” Another respondent noted the delays caused by contractor errors, stating “Yes most of the time we have to put a job on hold due to contractor errors. It usually take[s] a week or two for a contractor to get back to a job when they have moved on.”
 

“I’ve had to do engineering work to design fixes for botched jobs installed by unsupervised contractors installers because the engineer lets contractors do all the designing of the jobs without the engineer even visiting the sites. Causing poor installs of equipment and facilities.”

Survey responses indicate that contractor quality issues appear to be recurring and consistently falling into preventable categories. Seventy-five percent of survey respondents reported encountering “Placing Issues” and another 66% reported encountering “Terminal Issues.” Placing and Terminal issues include problems such as improper placement of cables and network equipment on customer premises, leading to jobsite revisits, preventing the turning on of service at scheduled times, and delays in network quality testing. Further, 44% of respondents reported encountering “Ground or Bonding Issues,” which include failing to properly ground cables, which can introduce unnecessary electrical hazards, and can lead to risks of electrical shocks for technicians and customers, as well as risks of fire. The photographs below illustrate the placing, terminal, grounding, and other common quality issues resulting from substandard contractor work identified by AT&T technicians.

Survey respondents reported issues with contractor’s poor work quality impacting customer relationships and retention. Nearly 75% believe contractor quality issues are negatively impacting AT&T customer retention, with one respondent writing, “When we have to repair contractors’ errors it delays the install. Customers do not deal well with delays these days. They usually cancel the order before the repairs are made and the install can be rescheduled.” Another noted, “Poor quality causes revisits which causes customer dissatisfaction. Who wants a service that takes 2 weeks to be resolved. Contractors’ appearances and vehicles make AT&T appear unprofessional.”

AT&T technicians also believe contractors’ treatment of customer property impacts customer retention and satisfaction. Sixty-four percent of respondents report encountering damage to customer residences/yards resulting from contractors. 
 

“Property owners are upset with the quality and care [of] some contractors we have working in and around their properties. Care to yards and our facilities. Lots of cosmetic issues are left with no regard to the owners of said properties.”

“While placing copper or fiber drops, they will cut customers' utilities or drainage system[s] for gutters, and they will do a [shoddy] repair or not even come back to repair it at all. The majority of the time the contractors will leave the yards or utility easements looking very poorly due to not grading out their spoil dirt. And the appearance of the contractors are not in line with AT&T’s image.”

The dissatisfaction with contractor work quality is not confined to the technician ranks – 56% of respondents say they hear managers express dissatisfaction, frustration, or concern about contractor quality issues often (most interactions) or very often (nearly every interaction), illustrating that the stress of contractors’ impacts extends beyond rank and file technicians.

A deeper look into the health and safety records of some of AT&T’s key contractors indicates a pattern of failure to protect workers from fall hazards and egress hazards that can lead to trench collapses that, in turn, can cause engulfment (i.e. death by strangulation, constriction, crushing, or suffocation).^[27]

• During an October 2023 OSHA inspection in Oklahoma City, OK, Superior Construction Management, Inc. received four serious citations, two of which were related to workers working under equipment and spoil piles without protective helmets exposing them to “struck-by hazards”^[28] and employees working in an excavation more than five feet in depth that were exposed to “cave-in hazards” from falling and/or collapsing soil.^[29]
• During an April 2020 OSHA inspection in Dallas, TX, ADB Companies Inc., received a serious citation related to a worker falling eight feet through a hole while pulling CAT5 wiring, which is an ethernet or data cable often used for computer networks.^[30] The worker was hospitalized with a laceration to the head and a fractured back.^[31]
• During an October 2019 OSHA inspection in Fort Worth, TX, Haros Brothers Co. received two serious and one other citations related to a worker not being provided a safe means of egress while looking for a fiber optic line in a 5-foot 5-inch deep trench which exposed them to a “cave-in” and “crush-by hazards”.^[32] The employer also did not ensure daily inspections of the excavation, which caused the worker to be exposed to engulfment hazards.^[33]
• During a May 2019 OSHA inspection in Fort Worth, TX, Prime Utility Construction received four serious citations related to failing to protect its workers from crushing and engulfment hazards.^[34] According to the citations, on or about April 2019, and at times prior thereto, workers were not provided means of egress from an excavation that was approximately eight feet deep.^[35] Additionally, the employer did not train workers on recognizing or avoiding unsafe conditions to eliminate hazards of working around excavation^[36] nor did the employer ensure that there were daily inspections by a competent person where possible “cave-ins” or indications of failure of protective systems was apparent.^[37]

Table 1 provides a summary of citations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for some of the contractors that have been identified as working on behalf of AT&T in the five states covered in this report.^[38] Between March 2017 and November 2024, the combined OSHA penalties for all of the listed contractors was nearly $100k, with the average penalty being almost $10k. Out of the combined twenty-three citations that were incurred by all the contractors, seventeen were categorized as serious violations.

 

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Table 1: Recent OSHA Record of AT&T Contractors

Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration

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