Bargaining and Mobilization Update

AT&T Midwest and AT&T Legacy T

This week, CWA members in the Midwest and at AT&T's national Legacy T unit voted to ratify four-year agreements covering 14,000 workers. The new agreements provide wage increases of 10.5% over the life of the contracts, cap health care costs, and preserve jobs.

"This was a long, hard fight," said CWA District 4 Vice President Linda L. Hinton. "Thanks to the persistence of our bargaining team, the resilience of our members, and engagement from legislators and allies we won a contract that helps protect jobs and strengthen our communities."

"Although our members are spread out across the country, we were united in our fight for a fair contract that protects good jobs at Legacy T," said Telecommunications and Technologies Vice President Lisa Bolton.

The new Midwest agreement provides for additional call center jobs and contains a commitment to discuss contracted out work, while the Legacy T agreement limits involuntary layoffs and contains a commitment on the number of jobs that will remain in the unit.

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AT&T Southeast

Hundreds of CWA members at AT&T Southeast from across District 3 rallied outside the company's headquarters in Atlanta on Saturday to show that they're ready to do whatever it takes to get a fair contract.

In the final hours before the current contract was set to expire on Saturday night, negotiators for CWA and AT&T agreed to extend the contract in the Southeast region for one week, until midnight on Saturday, August 10.

"We're bargaining with a company that makes billions," said CWA District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt. "And it's also a company that promised to create jobs based on the tax cuts. They said 7,000 good, middle-class jobs, and what have they done? They've gotten rid of 20,000 jobs."

Margaret Cook, newly-elected Vice President of the Public, Healthcare and Education Workers sector, also spoke at the rally. "I come from District 3, and I'm here to show solidarity across the sectors," Cook said. "When they mess with one of us, they're messing with all of us. We're going to stand united."

Hundreds of CWA members at AT&T Southeast from across District 3 rallied outside the company’s headquarters in Atlanta on Saturday to show that they're ready to do whatever it takes to get a fair contract.

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Boston Globe Media Partners

Members of the Boston Newspaper Guild/TNG-CWA Local 31245 took a collective lunch break this Tuesday outside the Boston Globe building to show that they are united despite the company having shown that it has no intention of backing down from its draconian proposals. Given the slow pace of contract negotiations and the insulting strong-arm tactics used by the company's lawyers, members have decided to file an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the Globe.

After eight months of negotiations, the company still expects its employees to give up overtime, seniority, pay scales, job descriptions, severance, protections from having their jobs outsourced, and more. The union would also lose the right to defend its members against management abuses. In exchange, the company has offered small wage increases that would not be retroactive. Their negotiators even turned down a simple union request to extend the time vacations could be rolled over, even though it would cost the company nothing.

The Boston Newspaper Guild's members took a collective lunch break this Tuesday outside the Boston Globe building to show that they are united in their fight for a fair contract.