CWA Bargaining Team Reaches Tentative Agreement at AT&T West

SACRAMENTO, CA – CWA’s bargaining committee and AT&T West have reached a new tentative agreement that provides major improvements over a previous tentative contract.

CWA members at AT&T West rejected that previous proposal by a wide margin; CWA elected local leaders then authorized District 9 Vice President Jim Weitkamp and the bargaining committee to return to negotiations last week.

This new tentative agreement has the unanimous recommendation of the bargaining committee. A ratification vote is being scheduled.

“Our members sent a strong message to AT&T management that real improvements had to be negotiated. They expressed their commitment to strike for a fair contract if necessary. Our bargaining committee was determined to use that strong membership vote to push for real gains at the bargaining table and they succeeded,” Weitkamp said.

Among the improvements:

• Wage increases over the four-year contract of 10.5 percent, retroactive to Oct. 1, 2012.
• An additional increase of $1.14 for premises technicians in all steps of the wage schedule, plus the percentage increases.
• An increase of 1 percent in the defined benefit pension bands in each of the four contract years

District 9 covers about 18,000 CWA members at AT&T operations in California and Nevada. These employees maintain and repair the fiber and copper networks over which regular telephone and cellular telephone signal travels; repair and install residential and business telephone systems; install AT&T’s video and internet products and provide customer service and sales to AT&T customers.

The previous AT&T West contract expired in April 2012.

Contact: Libby Sayre, CWA District 9, 916-541-3765, lsayre@cwa-union.org, and Sara Steffens, 510-332-9483, ssteffens@cwa-union.org