Labor union CWA said 93% of AT&T wireless retail employees, call center workers and technicians authorized a strike when current contract expires Feb. 11.
Update: Story updated with further comments from AT&T.
A majority of AT&T workers represented by the Communications Workers of America voted to authorize a strike should a new labor deal not be reached connected with a nationwide contract set to expire Feb. 11.
CWA said 93% of AT&T wireless retail employees, call center workers and technicians represented by the union group voted to authorize the strike “if necessary.” The current contract covers more than 21,000 workers across 36 states.
The union group claims AT&T has cut more than 8,000 call center jobs, moved “thousands of jobs” offshore and outsourced the operations of more than 60% of its wireless retail stores to third-party dealers. CWA said workers are set to rally this weekend outside retail stores and call centers in 35 cities.
“AT&T is underestimating the deep frustration wireless retail, call center and field workers are feeling right now with its decisions to squeeze workers and customers, especially as the company just reported more than $13 billion in annual profits,” said Dennis Trainor, VP of CWA District 1. “Nationwide, AT&T workers’ resolve to win has never been stronger and when telecom workers commit to winning a fair contract they don’t back down.”
AT&T Mobility on its “bargaining” website said it began negotiations with CWA on Jan. 25, with talks covering wages, benefits, pension and work rules.
“AT&T is the country’s largest employer of full-time union-represented labor, and the company’s goal in these negotiations is to continue to provide employees with high quality union-represented careers with wages and benefits that are among the best in the country,” the company noted on the website.
The telecom giant said it hired nearly 20,000 employees into union jobs last year, and was currently looking to fill an additional 4,200 union positions.
“A strike vote is a routine, not unexpected step in negotiations of this sort and is often a part of the process,” the carrier added. “We’re continuing to bargain with the union and we’re committed to reaching a fair agreement that will allow us to continue to provide solid union-represented careers with competitive wages and benefits. We’re confident an agreement will be reached.”
Call center and retail employees are at the center of plans by Sprint to “bring back” up to 5,000 jobs to the U.S., which are expected to be in place by the end of the carrier’s fiscal year 2017, which ends on March 31, 2018. The carrier, which is owned by SoftBank, said the jobs would “support a variety of functions across the organization including its customer care and sales teams,” and that it planned to begin discussions with its business partners, states and cities to determine where the jobs would be created.
AT&T and CWA late last year reached a labor deal covering approximately 2,000 employees of the telecom operator’s DirecTV subsidiary, which it acquired in mid-2015. The agreement included three labor contracts covering employees at five call centers located in Eden Prairie, Minnesota; Englewood, Colorado; Huntington, West Virginia; Huntsville, Alabama; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
CWA and AT&T earlier in the year struck labor deals covering 42,000 employees of AT&T Mobility, after having an initial proposal voted down by union workers.
Also last year, the CWA and International Brotherhood of Electrics Workers struck a four-year labor agreement with Verizon Communications, which ended a contentious strike. That agreement involved approximately 40,000 employees across both union groups, but was mostly focused on wireline employees.
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