WASHINGTON-Cingular Wireless L.L.C. disputed organized labor’s claim that the No. 1 mobile-phone operator promised not to fire any union employees as a result of the carrier’s $41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
The dispute comes amid impending post-merger job cuts at Cingular Wireless and union-management negotiations over a new contract covering 5,300 wireless workers around the country.
“We did get an oral commitment that [unionized] workers would not be laid off as a result of the merger,” said Candace Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America.
Cingular, 60-percent owned by SBC Communications Inc. and 40-percent held by BellSouth Corp., picked up CWA’s backing for its purchase of AT&T Wireless. The Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department conditionally approved the deal in 2004.
A month after government officials OK’ed the merger, Cingular Chief Executive Officer Stan Sigman said the Atlanta-based company would lay off 10 percent of its 68,000 employees. Most, said Sigman, would come from the administrative ranks.
Most of the 22,000 Cingular employees represented by CWA are technicians, customer service representatives and retail sales men and women.
Cingular said there was no deal with CWA to protect jobs.
“No, that is not correct. We have told the CWA that where workforce adjustments are determined to be necessary, then we will follow our labor agreements. We don’t comment on specifics of positions while in bargaining,” said Rochelle Cohen, a Cingular spokeswoman.
Meantime, CWA and Cingular continue negotiations in Atlanta where the union’s key bargaining goals are job security, fair wages, improved working conditions and issues affecting retail sales personnel.
“We continue to have significant discussions on our job-security issues, and we’re waiting now for some responses from management. We’ve also spent a good deal of time discussing job descriptions and job titles and are finalizing our economic proposal,” said CWA.
Bargaining covers about one-fourth of all Cingular union employees. The contract at issue involves union workers in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, California, the Plains states, the Mountain West and the Northeast. The contract covering those regions expires Feb. 5. The contract covering Cingular workers in the Southeast expires in March 2006, while the contract covering Cingular employees in the Southeast ends in 2008.
In addition to bargaining over a new Cingular, the CWA finds itself in a war of words with Verizon Wireless.
CWA claims Verizon Wireless employees have been thwarted by the No. 2 mobile-phone carrier’s “hostility to union representation in their bid for a union voice.”
CWA said its members came to the home of Verizon Wireless CEO Denny Strigl during the holidays to interrupt an evening dinner party with their protests. In addition, CWA said its members smashed cell phones on the sidewalk in front of Verizon Wireless stores to draw public attention to what it describes as the carrier’s “union-busting” policy.
CWA’s presence in Verizon Wireless is far less than it is at Cingular Wireless.
“The empty accusations by the CWA are nothing new,” said James Gerace, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. “They have been throwing around the words `union busting’ since the mid ’90s because they know it gets the attention of people like you. It’s born of the frustration that they have in getting the attention of Verizon Wireless employees. Behind the words, however, is nothing. I don’t even know what they mean when they say it.”
