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40,000 AT&T Employees Go On Strike For the Weekend

Following through on a promise made earlier in the week, AT&T union workers in 36 states and DC say they will engage in a three-day strike that could impact consumers over the weekend. Around 21,000 AT&T wireless workers have been working without a contract since February, and threatened AT&T earlier in the week that the limited strike would occur if AT&T didn't present them with an acceptable contract by 3PM today. The standoff comes as AT&T is also engaged in tense negotiations with the company's 17,000 fixed-line union employees across California and Nevada.

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The wireless strike could result in some retail store closures this week, and the wireline strike could impact AT&T customer installations and repairs.

"Despite being the largest telecom company in the country with nearly $1 billion a month in profits and the CEO earning $28 million, AT&T continues to pinch its workers’ basic needs and stand in the way of high-quality service its customers pay good money for," the CWA said in a statement. "This is a warning to AT&T: there’s only one way out of this now -- a fair contract -- and we’ll settle for nothing less."

The union says the workers want to reduce AT&T offshoring, improved job security, and no increase in healthcare contributions. AT&T hasn't seen a labor strike since a two-day strike back in 2012. AT&T says it will continue to work toward a new contract with the employees.

"We're all family, whether you're a union member or not," an AT&T representative tells Fortune. "Like any family we have our disagreements but we'll sort them out."

The fact that the union has set a hard end date to the strike suggests that the stand off isn't quite as dire as the six-week Verizon strike last year that dramatically hindered Verizon's installation and repair efforts.

Most recommended from 83 comments


mitsu06mr
join:2010-06-07
Ozone Park, NY

23 recommendations

mitsu06mr

Member

Here we go..

Nice to see the same old comments, if you don't like it quit. You people are part of the problem. You think we're all disposable. You're the reason why these big corporations get away with murder. I'm sure these corps care more about you than the technicians visiting your disgusting homes daily or keeping the plant afloat while these guys cut corners to save money. I don't see charter, Verizon or AT&T struggling. If they were it would have been a different story. Workers are not the f..... problem.

Anonc697a
@pacswitch.com

11 recommendations

Anonc697a

Anon

I agree with the union and the striking workers

If a company continues to outsource jobs to increase their revenue or profit despite annual billions in earnings then that corporation has a potential public perception problem. In other words,a greed issue.

AT&T over the last few years seems to be willing to spend billions to diversify itself but seem very reluctant to upgrade plans and services to the competitve satisfaction of the consumer. In other words,being stingy and not fully competing with T mobile one and T mobile one prepaid and perhaps
Sprint plans.
ptb42
join:2002-09-30
USA

6 recommendations

ptb42

Member

Where did that $1B/month in profit go?

According to AT&T's cash statement:

»finance.yahoo.com/quote/ ··· flow?p=T

Net income was $12.9B in 2016. $11.8B was paid in dividends to stockholders.

The net change in cash and cash equivalents is at the bottom of the URL above: $667M.

If you want to share in AT&T's profit, become a stockholder.