AT&T Talks Near Deadline

With the clock ticking toward the Dec. 10 contract expiration, CWA and AT&T bargainers remained far apart on some of the critical issues for workers, job security and health care for active members and retirees.

AT&T again brought up the issue of retiree health care and the CWA team again reminded the company that CWA is determined that retirees not be forced to carry the burden of high health care costs.

"It's clear that we have a long way to go to address our concerns about contracting out, managers doing our work, the lack of opportunities for our members to the jobs in new technologies, and to make certain that the integration of the SBC and AT&T does not negatively affect our members," said Ralph Maly, CWA vice president for communications and technologies.

CWA represents nearly 12,000 AT&T workers. More information and bargaining updates are available at www.cwa-comtech.org.