AT&T Legacy T Bargaining Report #16

Legacy T Bargaining Report #16

Today the Union again rejected the Company’s plan to freeze our pensions and force new hires to rely solely on a 401K, with no additional pension plan.  Mary Ellen Mazzeo showed example after example of how inadequate AT&T’s Pension proposals are.  Our demand was for pension increases for people under all three plans. She pointed out that any improvement we made by adding to the Cash Balance in the last round would be completely wiped out with the Company’s current proposal. 

We also demanded a significant pension increase for our current Retirees.  A portion of them received an increase in 2007 but the majority has received no increase for many, many years, while the cost of living and health care costs keep eating up a bigger and bigger portion of their pensions. 

The Union put another health care proposal on the table today as we continue to pressure the Company to talk about meaningful wellness programs before we will discuss any cost shifting to our members. 

We also proposed wage increases for our L-titles, which have traditionally been the lowest paid title in our unit. The current start rate for one of the L-titles is actually lower than the federally required minimum wage of $7.25. 

Finally, the Company again returned with a proposal to change our monitoring language, since we rejected their last proposal.  They continue to want to discard every protection we have fought so hard for over the years.  Their proposal eliminates side-by-side monitoring and would allow “process monitoring", which is done remotely and recorded 24 hours a day, to be used for discipline.   Even with all of the protections in our current language, our members are harassed by bad Management.  We will not allow them to gut this language.

We want to thank the Locals who joined our conference call and encourage all of you to step up Mobilization efforts. 

Your bargaining team, 

Bill Bates                                            Mary Ellen Mazzeo

Laura Unger                                        LaNell Piercy                             

Lois Grimes-Patow                               Roy Hegenbart  

Cindy Neumeyer

Martha Flagge