Telecom News: ‘One Union, One Fight, One Future’ - AT&T Core Talks Set for Early 2009 at Six Tab

CWA members at AT&T are gearing up for a tough fight when bargaining begins in early 2009,  but local and national officers are determined to meet the challenges posed by the nation's troubled economy and the telecom industry's ever-changing technologies.

At AT&T meeting, CWA Pres. Cohen stresses that building bargaining power is key to keeping quality contracts.

"If we go in with a sense of unity, we couldn't be stronger," CWA President Larry Cohen told 300 local officers attending bargaining council meetings in Dallas in November. "This union is sending a signal that we're fighting back. We're mad but we're hopeful and we're on the march. And we'll be on the march until every worker has a decent contract."

CWA and AT&T will bargain at six tables across the country beginning Feb. 24. The contracts cover 125,000 members. Bargaining with AT&T Mobility for 20,000 members covered by the CWA "Orange" contract, one of four Mobility contracts, begins Jan. 21 in Richmond, Va. (Click here to read story).

Contracting out of work, changes in job titles and descriptions and other job security issues surrounding AT&T's consolidation of various former Bell companies were major concerns for bargaining council participants.

Maintaining quality, affordable health care is another chief concern. Cohen assured participants that even though CWA will be fighting for national health care reform on Capitol Hill in 2009, the union will be fighting just as hard at the bargaining table for both members' and retirees' health care benefits.

In fact, 2009 will be a triple-play for CWA: The union's largest contract talks will be underway at the same time as two of the labor movement's biggest-ever legislative initiatives — health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Rather than compete with each other for time and energy, CWA leaders say the three big challenges complement each other, and that each is vital to rebuilding America's middle class.

CWA Exec. Vice Pres. Annie Hill urges locals to mobilize for negotiations as hard as they did for November’s elections.

"We have difficult bargaining ahead of us that will take a lot of energy and resources," CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill said. "But at the same time, we've got to engage our members in Employee Free Choice and health care legislative fights and make sure members understand how all three are connected."

While technology and the consolidation of the telecom industry have led to many changes with more ahead, Hill said CWA has survived big changes in the past.

"We've gone through this for years and years — operator services, business services, switching offices," Hill said. "What's happening now is happening at a much quicker pace than ever before and sometimes it's hard to imagine where it's going, but we need to work through it."

An analysis by CWA's Research Department looked at the continuing technological and strategic shift in the industry — convergence, consolidation of telecom companies, the development of fourth generation networks and other factors — to assess the impact on workers.

AT&T revenue has grown by more than $2 billion from 2005 to 2007, but voice revenue fell from 40 percent to 34 percent, a trend that will continue, analysts note, as wireless and data revenue grow.

AT&T continues to face tough competition from other telecom companies, cable and the substitution of wireless for wireline services. 

Andrew Seybold, a telecom industry expert, told participants that telecom companies, including AT&T, are moving to upgrade current wireless networks to 4G, fourth generation networks that will be fully Internet-protocol-based and offer wireless speeds of 50 to 100 megabits per second. "As wireless networks become bigger and faster, voice, data and video will be passed between wired and wireless networks," he said. That means a move from switches to routers, fewer central offices and necessary familiarity with IP for growing numbers of workers. (To read more on Seybold's report, click here.)

Armed with this information, participants worked to develop a strategic plan for contract bargaining that begins in early 2009.

The Core talks will take place at six tables around the country for AT&T Legacy, AT&T East (formerly SNET), AT&T West (formerly PacBell), AT&T Midwest (formerly Ameritech) AT&T South (formerly Southwestern Bell) and AT&T Southeast (formerly BellSouth).

The contracts expire April 4, 2009, with the exception of the AT&T Southeast pact. It expires in August 2009, but bargaining will be held in unison with the other companies.

Although the tables are spread out geographically, bargaining will be coordinated nationally. Bargaining team leaders and CWA national officers and staff will be in frequent contact.

Not all issues affect each geographic region the same way, and CWA national leaders said they understand that locals and districts have developed their own ways of doing business with the company over the years.

But noting the theme for 2009 bargaining, "One Union, One Fight, One Future," Hill said CWA goes into bargaining with a distinct advantage. While AT&T is restructuring, "We're one union and always have been one union," she said.