Message to Royce – Support Employee Free Choice

To:  AT&T Locals

Many of you have heard the voice mail from AT&T Vice President Mark Royce.  His message – to try to get us to lower our expectations in our 2009 negotiations – was that AT&T has a MUCH better relationship with the Union than Verizon and that AT&T faces a worse competitive situation than Verizon.  He stressed that AT&T competes head-to-head with non-Union cable companies that pay lower wages and little if any benefits (as if Verizon doesn't!).  Because of that, he said WE need to understand that they cannot keep giving us what they currently give us when we get to the table in 2009.

If this is not just a sham excuse, if AT&T is really concerned with the fact that they do not have a "level playing field" with their cable competitors like Comcast, there is a better solution.  It is not to try to make CWA members pay in our next Contract.  Instead, AT&T should take the lead in supporting the Employee Free Choice Act and a plan for health care for all.  Comcast and the cable industry have been able to use the current labor laws to keep Unions out and wages low.  They are not required to pay medical benefits.  If AT&T really wants to level things out and are not just looking for excuses to attack OUR Contract and our benefits, they need to make it possible for these workers to get the right to bargain and force these companies to pay their fair share of medical expenses.

We should be saying that to AT&T.  We should also make sure that every one of us has signed the Employee Free Choice Act card, is supporting our Health Care campaign, and working for a President who will fight for both of these instead of voting for one that has promised he will veto them.  Nothing we do between now and April will have as much effect on the bargaining climate we will face as those things.

Laura Unger
C&T Staff Mobilization

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