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AT&T Members Demand Fair Share As Talks Open for 50,000
Our Future Won’t Wait in ’98,” chanted thousands of CWA members at more than 20 ral-lies nationwide that marked the opening of AT&T bargaining. Key issues in the negotiations include a fair share in AT&T’s productivity and financial gains and opportunities for union members to transfer into the company’s new jobs.
As CWA Vice President Jim Irvine and the union bargaining committee on April 6 sat down with management in Washington, D.C., members in every CWA district stood up at work for five minutes to bolster a sense of urgency that union and management reach an agreement quickly.
CWA’s contracts with AT&T and Lucent Technologies expire May 30. Bargaining with Lucent was set to open April 20.
Irvine, who heads up CWA’s Communications & Technologies office, briefed reporters at union headquarters prior to the AT&T bargaining kickoff.
“We’re dealing with an enormously profitable company that made more than $20 billion last year,” Irvine stated.
“We are the ones who made those profits, through our contact with the customers,” he stressed.
Major issues in the negotiations, in addition to healthy wage increases, Irvine said, will be pension improvements and cardcheck recognition.
AT&T retirees have not had a pension increase since 1991, and Irvine pointed out that CWA members who work there are determined to ensure their retirement security. He noted that former AT&T CEO John Walter, who stayed with the company just seven months, left with $30 million in cash and stock — and a pension of $800,000 a year.
“This gives a whole new meaning to part-time work,” Irvine said. “You develop a covenant (with the company) when you put in 30 years or more. It is our expectation that this covenant will not be broken.”
Irvine also pointed out that AT&T is enjoying unprecedented growth, with an explosion of new jobs in wireless, in information technology, Internet and other data services: “As AT&T grows, so must CWA,” he stressed. “Our members must have access to these jobs and they must become union jobs.”
Irvine made it clear that a top union priority is guaranteeing that members can move into good union jobs at subsidiaries such as AT&T Wireless and AT&T Solutions, and that CWA can build its strength to represent them in future negotiations.
He called AT&T’s policy of “union containment” — interfering with the organization of new AT&T companies — “an insidious way to take away workers rights.”
Irvine noted that CWA has successful wall-to-wall cardcheck and neutrality agreements already in place with the former NYNEX (now Bell Atlantic north), SBC Corp., and at the entities that comprised AT&T when the 1995 contract was signed.
At companies that honor cardcheck and neutrality, said Irvine, “you don’t find the kind of vicious anti union material posted all over the walls like you do at AT&T TransTech.” By contrast, he pointed to the AT&T plant at Fairhaven, Conn. where 500 workers, through cardcheck, won recognition and CWA representation.
Irvine said that CWA will fight to forge a link between lifelong learning benefits and transfer and promotion rights, and would seek to improve the education and training benefits offered through the Alliance for Employee Growth and Development.
He said CWA will resist any attempt by AT&T or Lucent to shift health care costs to active members or retirees.
CWA represents about 50,000 workers at AT&T and is bargaining jointly with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents another 1,800.
“We don’t want a fight; we want AT&T to be successful,” Irvine said. He stressed, however, the importance of continuing mobilization, “so there is an understanding by management that these are well-thought-out demands that are supported by our members across the country."
As CWA Vice President Jim Irvine and the union bargaining committee on April 6 sat down with management in Washington, D.C., members in every CWA district stood up at work for five minutes to bolster a sense of urgency that union and management reach an agreement quickly.
CWA’s contracts with AT&T and Lucent Technologies expire May 30. Bargaining with Lucent was set to open April 20.
Irvine, who heads up CWA’s Communications & Technologies office, briefed reporters at union headquarters prior to the AT&T bargaining kickoff.
“We’re dealing with an enormously profitable company that made more than $20 billion last year,” Irvine stated.
“We are the ones who made those profits, through our contact with the customers,” he stressed.
Major issues in the negotiations, in addition to healthy wage increases, Irvine said, will be pension improvements and cardcheck recognition.
AT&T retirees have not had a pension increase since 1991, and Irvine pointed out that CWA members who work there are determined to ensure their retirement security. He noted that former AT&T CEO John Walter, who stayed with the company just seven months, left with $30 million in cash and stock — and a pension of $800,000 a year.
“This gives a whole new meaning to part-time work,” Irvine said. “You develop a covenant (with the company) when you put in 30 years or more. It is our expectation that this covenant will not be broken.”
Irvine also pointed out that AT&T is enjoying unprecedented growth, with an explosion of new jobs in wireless, in information technology, Internet and other data services: “As AT&T grows, so must CWA,” he stressed. “Our members must have access to these jobs and they must become union jobs.”
Irvine made it clear that a top union priority is guaranteeing that members can move into good union jobs at subsidiaries such as AT&T Wireless and AT&T Solutions, and that CWA can build its strength to represent them in future negotiations.
He called AT&T’s policy of “union containment” — interfering with the organization of new AT&T companies — “an insidious way to take away workers rights.”
Irvine noted that CWA has successful wall-to-wall cardcheck and neutrality agreements already in place with the former NYNEX (now Bell Atlantic north), SBC Corp., and at the entities that comprised AT&T when the 1995 contract was signed.
At companies that honor cardcheck and neutrality, said Irvine, “you don’t find the kind of vicious anti union material posted all over the walls like you do at AT&T TransTech.” By contrast, he pointed to the AT&T plant at Fairhaven, Conn. where 500 workers, through cardcheck, won recognition and CWA representation.
Irvine said that CWA will fight to forge a link between lifelong learning benefits and transfer and promotion rights, and would seek to improve the education and training benefits offered through the Alliance for Employee Growth and Development.
He said CWA will resist any attempt by AT&T or Lucent to shift health care costs to active members or retirees.
CWA represents about 50,000 workers at AT&T and is bargaining jointly with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents another 1,800.
“We don’t want a fight; we want AT&T to be successful,” Irvine said. He stressed, however, the importance of continuing mobilization, “so there is an understanding by management that these are well-thought-out demands that are supported by our members across the country."