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CWA Locals Prepare for AT&T Bargaining
Amid the major restructuring of AT&T, CWA local union officers are meeting in Orlando, Fla., Jan. 6-9 to set bargaining goals and plan for negotiations that will get underway this spring, reported Ralph Maly, CWA vice president for communications and technologies.
CWA President Morton Bahr, Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling and Executive Vice President Larry Cohen will address delegates; workshops will cover mobilization/political action, media training and legal issues, and benefits concerns.
Participants will build on an analysis of AT&T and other materials prepared by CWA's research department to adopt a bargaining resolution that sets the agenda for a new contract covering about 25,000 AT&T workers.
The CWA leadership conference also brings together local union leaders representing CWA members at Lucent Technologies, Avaya Communications and Agere Systems.
In late December, AT&T announced that its broadband division would merge with Comcast Corp., with AT&T head C. Michael Armstrong to serve as chairman of the new company under chief executive Brian Roberts.
This follows the spinoff of AT&T Wireless in July 2001 and signals the total abandonment of AT&T's strategy to provide integrated telephone data and video services to customers.
The surviving company will include consumer services, which has been declining but still generates significant profit for AT&T, and business services, which also has been profitable for AT&T but requires large capital investment to grow and compete.
Consumer services, or traditional residential long distance, produced a cash flow margin of 35.3 percent last year for AT&T, compared with 19.5 percent for broadband. As total sales continue to decline because of competition and technology, revenues also will drop.
The picture is much brighter on the business services side, and as AT&T transitions from voice telephony to data services, growth rates and revenues are expected to increase. However, many of the jobs in these high-growth areas have been kept "off limits" to CWA members who have earned the revenues that enabled AT&T to buy and then spin off wireless, broadband and other operations. Consumer and business services have been AT&T's cash cow, Maly noted, adding that CWA members will fight hard to gain access to the jobs in the company's growth areas.
In a press statement, CWA raised a number of concerns about the broadband merger, including major antitrust issues that federal regulators, Justice Department officials and local regulators must address. The merger would give the new company, AT&T Comcast Corp., control of 40 percent of the cable market.
Stockholders, including CWA's AT&T members who own more than 5 percent of the company's stock, are concerned also about the allocation of the more than $50 billion in debt that AT&T acquired when it first moved into broadband by purchasing Tele-Communications Inc., CWA pointed out.
Other concerns include Comcast's inconsistent labor relations record and its aversion to union organizing efforts by workers at several of its local companies, as well as improving job standards for workers in the cable industry.
"In contract talks this May, CWA will be seeking to make sure that employees in residential long distance - long considered the company's cash cow for costly acquisitions - continue to have a future with AT&T, and that employees in business services have a career path into growth areas such as data communications," CWA stressed.
CWA President Morton Bahr, Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling and Executive Vice President Larry Cohen will address delegates; workshops will cover mobilization/political action, media training and legal issues, and benefits concerns.
Participants will build on an analysis of AT&T and other materials prepared by CWA's research department to adopt a bargaining resolution that sets the agenda for a new contract covering about 25,000 AT&T workers.
The CWA leadership conference also brings together local union leaders representing CWA members at Lucent Technologies, Avaya Communications and Agere Systems.
In late December, AT&T announced that its broadband division would merge with Comcast Corp., with AT&T head C. Michael Armstrong to serve as chairman of the new company under chief executive Brian Roberts.
This follows the spinoff of AT&T Wireless in July 2001 and signals the total abandonment of AT&T's strategy to provide integrated telephone data and video services to customers.
The surviving company will include consumer services, which has been declining but still generates significant profit for AT&T, and business services, which also has been profitable for AT&T but requires large capital investment to grow and compete.
Consumer services, or traditional residential long distance, produced a cash flow margin of 35.3 percent last year for AT&T, compared with 19.5 percent for broadband. As total sales continue to decline because of competition and technology, revenues also will drop.
The picture is much brighter on the business services side, and as AT&T transitions from voice telephony to data services, growth rates and revenues are expected to increase. However, many of the jobs in these high-growth areas have been kept "off limits" to CWA members who have earned the revenues that enabled AT&T to buy and then spin off wireless, broadband and other operations. Consumer and business services have been AT&T's cash cow, Maly noted, adding that CWA members will fight hard to gain access to the jobs in the company's growth areas.
In a press statement, CWA raised a number of concerns about the broadband merger, including major antitrust issues that federal regulators, Justice Department officials and local regulators must address. The merger would give the new company, AT&T Comcast Corp., control of 40 percent of the cable market.
Stockholders, including CWA's AT&T members who own more than 5 percent of the company's stock, are concerned also about the allocation of the more than $50 billion in debt that AT&T acquired when it first moved into broadband by purchasing Tele-Communications Inc., CWA pointed out.
Other concerns include Comcast's inconsistent labor relations record and its aversion to union organizing efforts by workers at several of its local companies, as well as improving job standards for workers in the cable industry.
"In contract talks this May, CWA will be seeking to make sure that employees in residential long distance - long considered the company's cash cow for costly acquisitions - continue to have a future with AT&T, and that employees in business services have a career path into growth areas such as data communications," CWA stressed.