17,000 ATT Workers End the Southeast's Longest Telecommunications Strike After 30 Days (cwa-union.org) 36
For 30 days, 17,000 AT&T workers in nine different states from the CWA union went on strike. As it began one North Carolina newspaper noted some AT&T customers "report prolonged internet outages." Last week an Emory University economist told NPR that "If it wasn't disruptive or it didn't have any kind of negative element towards customers, then AT&T, I suspect, wouldn't feel any kind of pressure to negotiate."
The 30-day strike was "the longest telecommunications strike in the region's history," according to the union — announcing today that they'd now negotiated "strong tentative contract agreements" and that workers would report to work for their scheduled shifts tomorrow. The new contract in the Southeast covers 17,000 workers technicians, customer service representatives and others who install, maintain and support AT&T's residential and business wireline telecommunications network in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Wages and health care costs were key issues at the bargaining table, and the five-year agreement includes across the board wage increases of 19.33%, with additional 3% increases for Wire Technicians and Utility Operations. The health care agreement holds health care premiums steady in the first year and lowers them in the second and third years, with modest monthly increases in the final two years.
The statement adds that "CWA members and retirees from every region and sector of our union mobilized in support of our bargaining teams, including by distributing flyers with information about the strike at AT&T Wireless stores." CWA District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt added "We know that our customers have faced hardship during the strike as well. We are happy to be getting back to work keeping our communities safe and connected."
There's also a separate four-year agreement covering 8,500 AT&T West workers in California and Nevada. "Union members will meet to review the tentative agreements, before holding ratification votes in each region."
AT&T's chief operating officer said the Southeast agreement will "support our competitive position in the broadband industry where we can grow and win against our mostly non-union competitors."
The 30-day strike was "the longest telecommunications strike in the region's history," according to the union — announcing today that they'd now negotiated "strong tentative contract agreements" and that workers would report to work for their scheduled shifts tomorrow. The new contract in the Southeast covers 17,000 workers technicians, customer service representatives and others who install, maintain and support AT&T's residential and business wireline telecommunications network in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Wages and health care costs were key issues at the bargaining table, and the five-year agreement includes across the board wage increases of 19.33%, with additional 3% increases for Wire Technicians and Utility Operations. The health care agreement holds health care premiums steady in the first year and lowers them in the second and third years, with modest monthly increases in the final two years.
The statement adds that "CWA members and retirees from every region and sector of our union mobilized in support of our bargaining teams, including by distributing flyers with information about the strike at AT&T Wireless stores." CWA District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt added "We know that our customers have faced hardship during the strike as well. We are happy to be getting back to work keeping our communities safe and connected."
There's also a separate four-year agreement covering 8,500 AT&T West workers in California and Nevada. "Union members will meet to review the tentative agreements, before holding ratification votes in each region."
AT&T's chief operating officer said the Southeast agreement will "support our competitive position in the broadband industry where we can grow and win against our mostly non-union competitors."
Well Shite (Score:4, Interesting)
At least there's an explanation for the recent internet outage... often we get nothing at all at the office. We keep both ATT internet, and whatever Suddenlink has evolved into, so we can have internet most of the time.
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so we can have internet most of the time.
Contact a telecom broker and get your own internet. You don't have to have a telephone or cable company do it.
CTG3 or V1Data are suggested by others. There a heck of a lot of them out there.
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It's not all bad, collective bargaining worked. Good for the members.
Strikers required to picket for union pay (Score:4, Informative)
For transparency, since the news media never ever tells the actual story. Union members are required to walk picket lines and work for union strike duties during a strike in order to receive pay from the union during the strike. And to think, 99% of America news readers and TV news viewers would think that union members are out picketing for free.
Other unions would have similar requirements.
https://uaw.org/strike-faq/ [uaw.org]
To be eligible for strike pay and benefits, members must be:
In good standing (current on dues and initiation fees, if any) on the day before the strike starts
On active payroll at start of strike: members laid off, on workers compensation or receiving sick and accident benefits are not eligible
Member must participate in the strike: picket assignments, strike committee, etc
.
Media misportraying union altruistics (Score:2)
Agree. Unions are overwhelmingly portrayed in the news media as only having altruistic values and support for middle class families.
My only point was that the media dishonestly never reports union picketers as 'forced to picket to get union funds'. If the media intentionally does not report that inconvenient fact, what bigger inconvenient facts are not reported....
- Federal reserve employees not prevented from insider trading on economic news and federal reserve actions - https://abcnews.go.com/US/wire... [go.com]
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First, most journalists on TV are union people. That alone will skew a lot of reporting.
Second, it's important to note while on strike, the compa
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In regards to the second, Senator Ossof has been barking up that tree for awhile and a few months ago there was a bit of good news on that front that it's advanced somewhat. Still needs help so if your Senator isn't on that cosponsor list maybe ask them why. I asked mine and got some boilerplate thank you letter saying they are currently taking it under advisement.
S.1171 - Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act [congress.gov]
This bill generally prohibits Members of Congress (and their spouses a
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I don't recall ever seeing the news report that 1 + 1 = 2 either, but that doesn't make it dishonest. Maybe the news media just have a slightly less pessimistic view of the general level of ignorance in the US than you do, and don't want to teach grandmothers to suck eggs.
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Bullshit. Unions are usually portrayed as anti-shareholder and anti-ROI.
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My only point was that the media dishonestly never reports union picketers as 'forced to picket to get union funds'. If the media intentionally does not report that inconvenient fact, what bigger inconvenient facts are not reported....
Like your own inconvenient fact that the "forced" picketers could simply choose to continue working for their employer despite the strike, get paid that way, and not have to rely on union funds?
Where's that "they chose" argument your kind loves to trot out? You know the one that comes up whenever employment contract terms are questioned? Or wage increases are asked for? Or when someone brings up "the Right to Work" screwing over employees? Was it too inconvenient for your argument that they have any age
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resoned disucssion (Score:2)
derailing by knee jerk comments won't work.
Question is: Should the media report both the good and bad parts of unions, or just ignore the bad parts to keep a media endorsed narrative alive?
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What are the downsides to unions again? Higher wages, better benefits, worker protections, uhhh taking 2% of my paycheck for all this?
Except the police unions. Fuck all of them.
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The downside is when you get your ATT&T bill. Inflation. You'll be poorer so some ATT&T employee can get 20% more in their paycheck. Maybe that is fair maybe its not, I am not sure what they were getting paid. However generally speaking its unfair because if their labor was really so valuable Verizon would have been hiring them away anyway offering a better paycheck.
Unions are just collusion in the labor pool; when management engages in anti competitive practices we all scream for trust busting b
Re: resoned disucssion (Score:2)
There are many problems with unions, but comparing them to corporate trusts is highly disingenuous. The power differential between large corporations and everyone else is enormous, and they use that power to get way more in terms of money and influence than they provide in benefits.
Unions (including consumer unions) are just (ideally*) trying to get a fair dayâ(TM)s wages for a safe, fair day of labor, or a reasonably safe product that does what it advertises.
Let's root cause this (Score:2)
Democrat President Bill Clinton had his hand in creating this situation:
- Repealing Glass Stegal - Which formerly separated banking and investment banking parts of larger banks
- Legalizing corporate stock buybacks, formerly those were considered illegal stock market manipulation
- And stock options in the 1990s were able to be granted and kept on corporate books as zero cost expenses until the late 1990s
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Most Americans think unions poop sunshine and puppies.
I'd be willing to put $100 bet that you've never had a union job. Most people that disparage unions never have.
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When I was young I was a Teamster. I paid a significant portion of my paycheck every two weeks for the privilege of being guaranteed to be the first person laid off if layoffs came along. I was the low man on the totem pole, and so I would be the one to get the axe. I was making $9.50/hour, and it cost me $120 a month for that privilege. Some of the other idiots that were hired at the same time as me couldn't wait to join the union. I had much better math skills than they did, and so I waited until I w
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Yes, they do. Most Americans think unions poop sunshine and puppies. They think teachers unions, in particular, are in direct communication with the spirit of Mother Teresa. They think Democrats are pro-worker, like it's 1925 forever. They think unions "built the middle class."
How did the middle class happen then? The only reason you work 40 hours 5 days a week is because of unions. Yes, how dare people collectively bargain for higher wages. Civilized countries have things like worker protections where a company has to provide documentation as to why people are laid off. Here in the USA it comes down to "because the shareholders demanded it". With these financial figures I'm pretty sure AT&T can scrape by if people were paid more. https://investors.att.com/~/me... [att.com]
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The only reason you work 40 hours 5 days a week is because of unions.
Right there. There it is.
Hey, dumbass: Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week. He needed productive workers, not exhausted workers that get themselves hurt and fuck things up.
Knuckleheads like you can't grasp the fact that unions are a symptom: they don't create a damn thing. The cause is labor demand. Without high demand for labor, workers have no leverage. Between the last half century of off-shoring and now, staggering immigration, labor supply is a glut, and your naïve dream of a union
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It's not like the Ford family came to this decision in a vacuum. The labor movement had been going on for decades & was scaring the shit out of the business owners.
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Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week
This is, of course, total bullshit [wikipedia.org].
Re: Strikers required to picket for union pay (Score:2)
Civilized countries have things like worker protections where a company has to provide documentation as to why people are laid off. ..says the one who hasnâ(TM)t ever been let go from a right-to-work state. No documentation needed.
You're talking about "At-Will" employment. "Right to Work" is when you can't be forced to join a Union.
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Geez, you're an ignorant idiot.
Unions weren't recognized until FDR came in in 1933.
Why are you trolling this thread? (Score:2)
I've never been a Union member, but I'll admit I'm sure glad the labor unions exist. They're not best for all situations (I resisted attempts to unionize IBM when I worked there), but without them virtually all factory work would be little better than slave labor, done at starving wages with no chance of excellence for any but perhaps a select few born to rule. The largest of the corporations are acquiring almost state-like power; only unions have slowed (if not entirely prevented) this social catastrophe
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Union members are required to walk picket lines
Your own citation refutes that. Union members can do all kinds of duties, like transportation, childcare for kids of striking workers, etc. In practice, with large unions (like the UAW) most union members just stay home during strikes.
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Union members are required to walk picket lines
Your own citation refutes that. Union members can do all kinds of duties, like transportation, childcare for kids of striking workers, etc. In practice, with large unions (like the UAW) most union members just stay home during strikes.
I suppose it depends on the union. I was a member of a union once, and served on its negotiating committee. We ended up in a (short) strike. Members of the negotiating team could count their hours negotiating as part of their strike-duty, but they were not completely excused from picket duty.
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So you don't actually understand how insurance companies work?
We don't know all the details (Score:2)
The problem with the situation is not knowing what was going on leading up to the strike. How would you feel if you were working for 20% less than the typical pay is for that type of job? If the median pay for customer service is $40,000 and AT&T were paying only $35,000 per year, then demanding that pay be increased with how bad inflation has been makes a lot of sense.
Not every company pays a decent wage for the job being done. If you find that other people are getting paid more for doing the sam