Telecom News: AT&T Mobility Health Care Issue To Arbitration

Negotiations for a new health care agreement covering more than 40,000 CWA members at AT&T Mobility are entering arbitration in September after an acceptable agreement could not be reached with the company.

In bargaining to date, the company has been insisting on shifting a significant share of the plan's health care costs on to employees, and has proposed a more expensive level of benefit coverage for new hires.

"We believe the company's position is unacceptable and is exactly the wrong direction to proceed as we try to find a national solution to health care," said Executive Vice President Annie Hill, who heads CWA's Telecom Office. "We want to find a solution that gets health care off of the bargaining table, and also lessens health care costs to employers, but not at the expense of workers. That isn't the way to solve the problem," she said.

Bargaining got underway June 3 for an agreement that expired on June 30, but CWA's agreement with AT&T Mobility provides for binding arbitration to resolve the dispute in the health care plan. Four separate contracts cover CWA members at AT&T Mobility but all share the same benefit plans.

Members of the CWA bargaining team are Betty Witte, chair, District 3; Paul Klaebel, District 3; Rafael Castro, District 3, Puerto Rico; Holly Sorey, District 4; Jim Murray, District 6 and Joe Sison, District 9, and John Alphonse, CWA staff representative, District 1.