AT&T Legacy T Bargaining Report #30

The Bargaining Teams just finished meeting.  The Company rejected the CWA’s package “in its entirety” and put their own package on the table:

(1) A slightly improved wage package from their original.

(2) No improvement on pensions or change in their initial proposal.

(3) Slight movement on Health Care that still includes two tiers with slightly changed numbers topping out at a 30% cost share for our members.

(4) Rejection of our proposal to include Mobility in the National Transfer Plan.

(5) Rejection of our proposal to allow employees within 5 years of retirement to move to AT&T Mobility (with no loss of pay or benefits).

(6) Rejection of our proposal to deal with sub-contracting, off-shoring and the movement of work to management.

(7) Not only a rejection of our proposal to expand those covered by JOG, but the addition of several parts that take away JOG from employees who have less than satisfactory attendance and appraisals.  Worse, they want the ability to cancel JOG completely at their discretion based on their assessment of business conditions.

(8) They want to eliminate our entire employment security letter along with the watermark of jobs and the limited layoff that we had in our last agreement,

(9) No change to their last awful absence proposal.

10) No change to their last proposal on vacations.

Other proposals were passed by the Union to improve Articles 39, 43 and 45, but clearly the main focus of the discussions was the Company’s package.

Vice president Maly captured the feelings of every one of your bargainers:

“Obviously the Company misled us in the meeting with the CWA Vice Presidents.  He said we have to find a way to allow core people into Mobility.  With our NTP proposal people might at least have been able to bid for a vacancy.  You have succeeded in shutting the door.  We also made a proposal to allow surplus people that are close to retirement to get into Mobility.  You have shut that door.  So obviously the Company had no real desire to get core people into Mobility.  The Union offered two different ways to do that and both have been rejected.  The Company has not done anything.  In addition to that, you have now bastardized our JOG language we fought hard for.  I assure you, there will be no agreement without JOG and the protection it brings.  There will be no deal from this group without JOG language, and I am not talking about language that says you can cancel it tomorrow - because you will.

"It is now 5 minutes to 7:00.  I believe we are further apart than we were yesterday.  I don’t think it’s possible to get an agreement tonight.  It will take us several hours to respond.  I know the Committee and I are extremely disappointed.  That is a real slap in the face as far as I am concerned.”

We will return to the bargaining table later tonight.