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CWA: Proposed SBC-AT&T Merger Would Help Workers, Consumers
The proposed merger between AT&T and SBC would stop AT&T's rapid decline and give new hope to employees who fear their jobs will be next on the chopping block, CWA said, urging government regulators to allow the deal to go through.
"It is clear that AT&T, as a stand-alone business, can only go in one direction, and that involves shrinking revenues, shrinking income, shrinking investment and shrinking jobs," CWA stated in a position paper being widely distributed. "SBC has a plan for AT&T that will create a new, vigorous provider of innovative telecommunications products for consumers, and a robust provider of secure jobs throughout the United States."
CWA leaders and staff will testify at public utility hearings as individual states consider the impact of the merger. The first such hearing took place June 6 in New Jersey, where CWA Local 1150 President Laura Unger and District 1 researcher Suman Ray told the board that AT&T is facing a crisis.
"At AT&T, there has been nothing but bad business decisions, bad purchases, bad sales...one bad decision after another that have led to a loss of jobs and a loss of shareholder value," Unger said. "Maybe under the leadership of SBC, we will have a future."
The paper outlines AT&T's freefall, noting that since 1999 the company has cut two-thirds of its wireline operations—27,000 jobs—and seen its revenues drop by $19 billion, or 38 percent.
Both employees and customers have suffered as AT&T, in just the past year, has closed call centers in Charleston, W.Va., Mesa, Ariz., Syracuse, N.Y., Atlanta, St. Louis, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, CWA says. Thousands of workers have lost their jobs in telemarketing and customer care divisions and many more are at risk as the company continues to shift work to such low-wage countries as Mexico, India and the Philippines.
In recent years, CWA says AT&T has "careened from one failed business strategy to another," from losing $38 billion by abandoning its broadband cable division to eliminating its marketing functions to losing nearly 20 million long-distance customers in less than two years, between 2003 and 2004.
Meanwhile, other companies—many of them non-union—are stepping in with strong wireless telephone and Internet options. SBC represents a strong, unionized competitor, CWA President Morton Bahr said.
"Without a merger partner that will be able to maintain AT&T's already downsized business, there is a real threat that AT&T will face even more dramatic declines, or will disappear altogether," Bahr said. "The merger with SBC represents the best opportunity to stabilize the future for AT&T employees."
At the New Jersey hearing, Unger recounted AT&T's history in New Jersey, noting that it was once the largest private employer in the state. Now, she said, it has "closed building after building" in the state and sent what work that wasn't eliminated to contractors in other states or across the ocean.
Unger called on the board to approve the merger but also to monitor SBC's performance in terms of jobs, quality of service and prices. While the union will work hard to make the merger a success, "If SBC is buying AT&T to use us as spare parts and continue its destruction, then we will all have a fight on our hands," she said.
"It is clear that AT&T, as a stand-alone business, can only go in one direction, and that involves shrinking revenues, shrinking income, shrinking investment and shrinking jobs," CWA stated in a position paper being widely distributed. "SBC has a plan for AT&T that will create a new, vigorous provider of innovative telecommunications products for consumers, and a robust provider of secure jobs throughout the United States."
CWA leaders and staff will testify at public utility hearings as individual states consider the impact of the merger. The first such hearing took place June 6 in New Jersey, where CWA Local 1150 President Laura Unger and District 1 researcher Suman Ray told the board that AT&T is facing a crisis.
"At AT&T, there has been nothing but bad business decisions, bad purchases, bad sales...one bad decision after another that have led to a loss of jobs and a loss of shareholder value," Unger said. "Maybe under the leadership of SBC, we will have a future."
The paper outlines AT&T's freefall, noting that since 1999 the company has cut two-thirds of its wireline operations—27,000 jobs—and seen its revenues drop by $19 billion, or 38 percent.
Both employees and customers have suffered as AT&T, in just the past year, has closed call centers in Charleston, W.Va., Mesa, Ariz., Syracuse, N.Y., Atlanta, St. Louis, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, CWA says. Thousands of workers have lost their jobs in telemarketing and customer care divisions and many more are at risk as the company continues to shift work to such low-wage countries as Mexico, India and the Philippines.
In recent years, CWA says AT&T has "careened from one failed business strategy to another," from losing $38 billion by abandoning its broadband cable division to eliminating its marketing functions to losing nearly 20 million long-distance customers in less than two years, between 2003 and 2004.
Meanwhile, other companies—many of them non-union—are stepping in with strong wireless telephone and Internet options. SBC represents a strong, unionized competitor, CWA President Morton Bahr said.
"Without a merger partner that will be able to maintain AT&T's already downsized business, there is a real threat that AT&T will face even more dramatic declines, or will disappear altogether," Bahr said. "The merger with SBC represents the best opportunity to stabilize the future for AT&T employees."
At the New Jersey hearing, Unger recounted AT&T's history in New Jersey, noting that it was once the largest private employer in the state. Now, she said, it has "closed building after building" in the state and sent what work that wasn't eliminated to contractors in other states or across the ocean.
Unger called on the board to approve the merger but also to monitor SBC's performance in terms of jobs, quality of service and prices. While the union will work hard to make the merger a success, "If SBC is buying AT&T to use us as spare parts and continue its destruction, then we will all have a fight on our hands," she said.