CWA Members Tell AT&T: Keep Your Commitments to Workers and Retirees

Nationwide CWA members at AT&T ramped up mobilizing efforts to support their bargaining teams as the contract deadline approached.Above, CWAers in District 6 picketed the company's office in Dallas.  Below, members of Local 4008 picketed an AT&T office in Mount Clemens, Mich.

Backed by an active mobilization campaign underway in every CWA district, CWA bargainers were working down to the wire to reach new agreements with the AT&T prior to contract expiration on April 4.          

As this issue went to press, union negotiators were pressing AT&T management to do its part to help the nation's struggling economy and America's middle class by maintaining quality jobs and quality benefits. CWA members are calling on the company to bargain fair contracts with real employment security, including access for employees to the jobs of the future, and not cut benefits for workers and retirees.

CWA members at AT&T sent management a strong message by voting overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if negotiations fail to produce quality contracts. Overall, 88 percent of voting members approved the strike authorization. Balloting was conducted by locals unions whose members are covered by six separate contracts.

The negotiations cover some 125,000 employees at AT&T East (formerly SNET), AT&T Southeast (formerly BellSouth), AT&T Midwest (formerly Ameritech), AT&T Southwest, AT&T West (formerly PacBell) in Pleasanton, Calif., and AT&T Legacy, a nationwide unit. The contracts, with the exception of AT&T Southeast, expire on April 4. The AT&T Southeast agreement expires Aug. 8 but early negotiations are underway.

In actions across the country, CWAers have been leafleting, holding rallies, conducting stand-ups at worksites and marching into work together, among other actions, to show their support for their bargaining teams and determination to win contracts that maintain quality jobs and quality benefits.

CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill pointed out that "AT&T is a very successful and profitable company, even in these bad economic times" and that the company, which has been taking care of executives and investors, also needs to look out for the employees and retirees who have made it successful.

Members ramped up mobilization as contract expiration neared.

More than 100 Cleveland CWAers rallied outside the AT&T building, while California CWA members joined rallies in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco, the Stockton Courthouse, and at AT&T operations in Fresno. A mass rally was held by members of Locals 9410, 9412, 9415, 9404, and 9119 on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento. In Georgia, hundreds of CWA members rallied in front of the company's office in Atlanta.

In Pennsylvania, members of Local 13550 wore surgical masks to protest proposed cuts in health care coverage; members of the CWA "Legacy" contract bargaining team did the same to show members' opposition to AT&T's demands for health care cost shifting.

In Connecticut, CWA Local 1298 members are holding "practice picketing" sessions at garages and informational picketing everyday.

Throughout District 6, members are wearing red on Thursdays and black on Fridays to press for quality health care and quality jobs. Keeping quality health care was the message to AT&T management at a giant rally outside AT&T corporate headquarters in Dallas.

In Amarillo, Tex., members of Local 6128 have been standing up together at their work places three times a day; Local 6150 members do the same and use their clickers to get management's attention. For members of Local 6151, "Tap on Tuesday" is a big mobilization hit with workers tapping on their desks for 30 seconds every hour on the hour.

For updates and a full roundup of events, go to www.cwa-att.com.