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CWA: Telecom Mergers Must Respect Workers, Consumers
In a move that reflects the dramatic change in telecommunications over the past 22 years, SBC Communications is buying AT&T, the 127-year-old company that was America's principal service provider for business and residential customers for decades.
Shortly after the SBC announcement of a $16 billion deal, Verizon Corp. announced its intention to buy MCI, the company that first challenged AT&T's long distance monopoly back in the 1970s. And then Qwest quickly announced that it would top Verizon's offer of $6.7 billion for MCI, setting the stage for a bidding war.
Commenting on the proposed deals, CWA President Morton Bahr stressed that the creation of quality jobs and a continued commitment to consumers and universal service were the necessary elements in order for CWA to support the mergers.
CWA represents 95,000 workers at SBC, 15,000 at AT&T, 66,000 at Verizon and 26,000 at Qwest. MCI is non-union and has brutally crushed past attempts by workers to organize, even engaging in office closing to keep unions out.
Regarding SBC's acquisition of AT&T, Bahr expressed CWA's concern "for the employment security and career opportunity of the employees we represent. In recent years, AT&T has been contracting its business and shedding jobs. With the integration of its operations into SBC, there is now the opportunity for a new strategy that instead focuses on dynamic growth and creation of new services and technologies."
Similarly, a merger of MCI with either Verizon or Qwest should provide "new opportunity for workers and a renewed commitment to customers. That means the creation of quality jobs to ensure that workers and American communities also will benefit, as well as continued support for universal service as technology changes the tools we use to communicate," he said.
Both AT&T and MCI bring extensive global networks and Internet backbone facilities as well as large bases of business customers to their merger partners.
These mergers bring the 1984 divestiture of the telephone system full circle. Before that breakup, AT&T, widely known as "Ma Bell," was the nation's dominant telephone service provider. A legal challenge to AT&T's influence was brought by MCI in the 1970s, eventually leading to a government-mandated breakup of the company, the establishment of seven regional Bell companies and the transformation of the industry.
Industry analysts point out that the communications sector has changed fundamentally over the past two decades with the growth of wireless communications, and with cable and satellite companies providing competition for Bell companies across the board, from broadband to Voice over Internet Protocol and other services.
Shortly after the SBC announcement of a $16 billion deal, Verizon Corp. announced its intention to buy MCI, the company that first challenged AT&T's long distance monopoly back in the 1970s. And then Qwest quickly announced that it would top Verizon's offer of $6.7 billion for MCI, setting the stage for a bidding war.
Commenting on the proposed deals, CWA President Morton Bahr stressed that the creation of quality jobs and a continued commitment to consumers and universal service were the necessary elements in order for CWA to support the mergers.
CWA represents 95,000 workers at SBC, 15,000 at AT&T, 66,000 at Verizon and 26,000 at Qwest. MCI is non-union and has brutally crushed past attempts by workers to organize, even engaging in office closing to keep unions out.
Regarding SBC's acquisition of AT&T, Bahr expressed CWA's concern "for the employment security and career opportunity of the employees we represent. In recent years, AT&T has been contracting its business and shedding jobs. With the integration of its operations into SBC, there is now the opportunity for a new strategy that instead focuses on dynamic growth and creation of new services and technologies."
Similarly, a merger of MCI with either Verizon or Qwest should provide "new opportunity for workers and a renewed commitment to customers. That means the creation of quality jobs to ensure that workers and American communities also will benefit, as well as continued support for universal service as technology changes the tools we use to communicate," he said.
Both AT&T and MCI bring extensive global networks and Internet backbone facilities as well as large bases of business customers to their merger partners.
These mergers bring the 1984 divestiture of the telephone system full circle. Before that breakup, AT&T, widely known as "Ma Bell," was the nation's dominant telephone service provider. A legal challenge to AT&T's influence was brought by MCI in the 1970s, eventually leading to a government-mandated breakup of the company, the establishment of seven regional Bell companies and the transformation of the industry.
Industry analysts point out that the communications sector has changed fundamentally over the past two decades with the growth of wireless communications, and with cable and satellite companies providing competition for Bell companies across the board, from broadband to Voice over Internet Protocol and other services.