Solidarity with Striking AT&T Workers Brings Football Fans Together Across Team Rivalries

SOUTHEAST – As college football fans prepare to cheer for their teams in season openers, workers at AT&T Southeast are building a solidarity stronger than any team rivalry. Members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) will be taking action and running mobile billboard trucks outside of college football stadiums today to spread their message of solidarity as the strike against AT&T Southeast enters its third week.

Over 17,000 technicians, customer service representatives, and others who install, maintain, and support AT&T’s residential and business wireline telecommunications network are on strike in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee in response to AT&T’s failure to bargain in good faith.

Union members and their mobile billboard trucks will be outside stadiums, including the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta for the Clemson-Georgia game, Neyland Stadium for the Chattanooga-Tennessee game, and Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for the Miami FL-Florida game.

“Over the last weeks, we have proven that our solidarity is stronger than any on-field rivalry, or any attempt to divide us,” said Clint Woody, a striking AT&T wire tech from Tennessee. “I’m proud to stand with my union brothers, sisters, and siblings across the Southeast and we will hold together on our picket lines until AT&T bargains with us in good faith.”

CWA has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against AT&T for bargaining in bad faith, in violation of federal labor law.  The CWA charge alleges that the company has engaged in surface bargaining, failed to send representatives to the bargaining table with the authority to make proposals or enter agreements, refused to bargain over a mandatory subject of bargaining, and reneged on an agreement made in bargaining.

Negotiators have been at work bargaining a new contract since late June. Earlier this month, CWA and AT&T Southeast entered into federal mediation. The current contract between CWA and AT&T Southeast expired on August 3.

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