The Communications Workers of America(CWA) and AT&T are in contract negotiations with four bargaining units representing 130,000 union members employed in thier landline Regional Telephone Companies. Three of those unit's contracts expired 4/1, the fourth expires in August. AT&T is the most unionized corporation in America today.
AT&T had prepared for a strike by hiring replacements, recruiting management retirees and of course positioning their active management to fill the jobs of striking workers. T apparently attempted to force out the workers by claiming that thier offer to reduce Health Benefits and increase costs for their actives and reitrees was their best and final offer. CWA did not take the bait and continues to work and negotiate under the terms of the expired contract.
AT&T is attempting to use the economy as the reason to shift costs. They just reported their first quarter earnings today, AT&T Shares Rise on Solid Quarter. Quoting from the article;"Even AT&T's revenue, which was flat year over year at $30.6 billion, and came in below Wall Street's forecast of $31.8 billion, was shrugged off by Bernstein's Moffett. "Overall, the results are likely to draw a sigh of relief," he said. "Yes, revenue growth is now zero or less, but AT&T's results show that the company is well-positioned to handle the recession from a cost-management perspective, and equally well-positioned to emerge stronger when the recession eventually ends." Moffett is one of the principle annalysts covering Telcom.
AT&T has been gearing up for a tough round of negotiations for some time. Shortly after CWA settled it's contract with Verizon, AT&T began the lowering of expectations game by declaring they had no intention of comming to A Verizon type settlement in their upcomming negotiations. They made it clear. They were comming after healthcare.
Having healthcare be the point of contention in bargaining is certaintly no surprise. The rest of the contract issues, in any bargaining, depend on the outcome of the healthcare bargaining. CWA's position is that AT&T is a financially robust corporation. That the issue of health care is national in scope and that by joining together with the CWA AT&T, Verizon and other corporations and unions and health care activists we can help seek a national solution.
While these negotiations continue, you can help support the members of CWA at AT&T by signing the petition.The petitions message asks AT&T to;
* Take the lead in helping to turn our economy around instead of copying the worst Wall Street behavior.
* Support the employees who make AT&T a success, and who help build today's high tech infrastructure.
* Work with CWA for real health care reform.
Americans want an economy that works for all of us.
In Unity, John