CWA Members Demand Fairness at AT&T ProAM in Pebble Beach

On Saturday, February 11, CWA Locals 9333, 9400, 9404, 9408, 9412, 9415, 9416, 9417, 9423, 9431, and 9432 took part in the mobilization action at the 2012 AT&T Pro-Am Golf Tournament in Pebble Beach, California.   A total of 91 individuals took part, mostly CWA members along with a few family members and retirees.  We all met at the Cal State Monterey Bay campus parking area at 7AM.  Many wore red shirts, but everyone had the CWA logo on clothing. We also wore "Cutting Our Health Care Is a Sick Idea" stickers.

Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T, was scheduled to tee off at 9:06AM from the 1^st tee at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club Shore Course, and CWA was there to meet and greet him!  A company employee earlier had told us that employees were told not to watch him golf (CWA did not get this memo)!  This was probably true because there was no one but CWA following him!

At the first hole, RS spoke briefly with us.  He was told to not cut our health care, that we knew he got a good raise and that we wanted a good contract.  His response was that negotiations worked out last contract, and how did we know he got a raise?  Randall’s first drive went into the trees and his day would get progressively worse.  Tournament security approached us still on first hole to ask if we were going to demonstrate and we told them to not to worry, we were there to cheer on our boss. 

RS tried to banter with us at the first few holes, and drive after bad drive he joked he thought we would bring him good luck or he wished we had kicked the golf ball out of the tall grass for him.  His foursome partner, David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric, joked with us when he asked, “Was it was true that Randall had climbed telephone poles?”  We all said “NO!”  Randall responded, “Did it count that his brother did?”  We all said “NO!”  The caddie for one of the pros soon asked Randall to be quiet while his golfer was teeing off. 

About the 3^rd or 4^th hole, tournament security again came up to me and asked what our plans were there.  We again reassured them we were law-abiding citizens there to watch our CEO golf and we were big golf fans!  Soon after, we began noticing a lot more security -- Corporate, Tournament and Monterey County Sheriff -- following us.

Randall had a bad golf day.  He hit at least 4 times into sand traps, 2 times into tall grasses, 1 time into trees, 1 time into a ditch with water, 1 time into a ice plant.  He asked that we not tell anyone how his golfing went.

After the 6^th hole, about one half of our group went over to the Pebble Beach course to distribute leaflets and try to get on live camera shots.  There the group handed out many leaflets and encountered a lot of company managers.  An AT&T retiree volunteering even stopped them to talk about the contract.

At the 9^th hole with Randall, the main Tournament Security person came up to let me know that two sheriffs had been assigned to escort us (which we had figured out a while ago).  The sheriffs were cool with us; we talked about health care, overtime, and also they let us know Randall had requested protection, and wished us good luck when we were done.

A few times, Randall just picked up his golf ball when he could not get it into the hole.  At the 16th hole we told him he was now on a Performance Improvement Plan for golf.  After the 18^th hole, he could not run off the course quickly enough.  At 3:00PM, we began our trip home.  Mission accomplished!

In Unity,

Louie Rocha