AT&T "Legacy T" Bargaining Report #17

Here we are a week away from expiration, and the Company threw us a completely new attack on our Contract and the future of our Union.  Their newest set of proposals on Health Care, pensions and other parts of the Contract, create "two tiers" - one set for CURRENT employees and another set for "NEW HIRES."  Their definition of new hires includes not just brand new workers (which is bad enough), but anyone who was laid off and came back through any other method except recall.  For example, a 20-year employee who is off roll for a few months and gets a job through ARS in the same title, in a neighboring GCA, gets treated like a NEW HIRE for all benefits.  People will be working side by side with substantially different benefits.  We said it is also an attack on the Union, because how can we build the unity we'll need for the next Contract fight when a portion of the workers are second class citizens?

Their pension proposals were insulting to us all.  NO pensions at all for new hires – not even Cash Balance; just various savings plans.  For current employees they proposed NO increase in the bands or the CBA (other than the 4% interest).  The Company recently took our very well-funded Pension Fund and merged it into the ailing Legacy S fund.  That means they basically stole our money and now won't even give us a decent increase.

Their Health Care Benefit Proposal: All the regressive things they put out last time are now for New Hires.  The plan for current employees is better but not by much.  They want current employees to pay monthly premiums for 2010 of $0 for individuals, $60 for the employees plus 1 dependent and $120 for a family.  These amounts could vary year-to-year based on Company assessments of its costs.  However, even with these premiums, there are still deductibles of 1% of annual pay for individuals, 2% for individuals plus 1, and 3% for families.  There's a maximum, but the family of an employee who makes $50,000 a year will need to pay out $1500 before they get a penny of benefits (with some exceptions like preventative care).  In addition, there is a "co-insurance" (what we call a co-pay) when you actually go to the doctor, emergency room, or hospital.  There are maximums, but for a family it is 8% of annual pay with a maximum of $5300!  There is more but you get the point.  It stinks, and this is just for CURRENT employees (using the definition we talked about above).

To top all that off, they proposed to cut back our ARC coordinators from FOUR to ONE, eliminate our ATS coordinator, and give those functions to the one ARC coordinator that is left.  They believe an online training class can replace most of the face-to-face help that these coordinators have provided for so many of our members.  No way!  Anyone who has been through a surplus knows how valuable these people have been to our members, especially considering the amount of MISINFORMATION given to our members by supervisors and whoever is on the other side of those 800 numbers you have to call.  Their proposal also limits the role of the Health Care Coordinator.

They also proposed to eliminate our Family Care Development Fund and the AT&T Performance Award.  The Company is telling you we are "greedy" for not accepting premiums.  Ask Stephenson and Co. about their $33 million in salaries, the dividend increase that put money in their pockets, their millions in bonuses and other perks, the money paid to them for their houses in San Antonio when they couldn't sell them for the millions they wanted.  They have NO RIGHT to call us greedy when all we are asking is for a profitable company to treat its workers fairly.

Saturday we will be meeting with the Company.  Unless there is some major news, our next report will be on Monday, March 30th.

If you have any doubt how hard you need to be working to fight for a fair contract, just go back to the top and read this over again.  There should be NO BUSINESS AS USUAL this last week.  Everything you do in every location must send the message that we will not accept this.