| CWA/AT&T District 3 Negotiations One thing many of you are missing is that the health care benefits over which these negotiations are taking place were bargained for in the last union contract. Sure, health care costs have risen, but BellSouth/AT&T most assuredly accounted for this potential increase at the time the original negotiations took place--or at least they should have. To the extent the increased costs were not completely factored into the last contract, or if estimates for such increases were not accurate, that's AT&T's fault--the employees' obligations to AT&T have not changed. It's no different than the union telling AT&T that each employee is going to reduce his/her hours to 30 per week because of unforeseen affects of global warming, while keeping the same pay.
AT&T's attempt to effectively back out of prior promises because costs allegedly have skyrocketed while it raked in more than $6 billion of PROFITS (i.e., AFTER mega bonuses are paid to the executives, and AFTER these 'ridiculous' health care costs for its employees) last year is absolutely ABSURD. If AT&T gets its way and shifts more of the health care costs to its employees, how many more billions in PROFITS would it make in 2009? How about if we weren't in a FREAKING RECESSION? AT&T is redefining "greed." |
