Communications Workers of America authorizes strike of 20,000 AT&T workers, could happen soon
By Nilay Patel 
posted February 6th 2009 3:43PM
posted February 6th 2009 3:43PM
It's been a little under the radar, but AT&T Mobility's been in contract talks with the Communications Workers of America on behalf of some 20,000 unionized workers, and things haven't been going so well -- in fact, the CWA just voted to authorize a strike if upcoming negotiations don't improve. The union's current contract actually expires tonight at midnight, but the strike won't take place until the union's executive board approves and the CWA president sets a date. For its part, AT&T says it maintains a good relationship with its unions -- it has more unionized workers than any other carrier -- and that the vote is just another part of the process, but that it's prepared for all contingencies, including a strike. We'll see what happens, stay tuned.
Something tells me this is not the best time to "Strike"
Union: We want more money!!!
Grand Moff Tarkin (AT&T): We have the death star as our logo, and you union workers are on our figurative Alderaan.
Grand Moff Tarkin (AT&T): You may fire when ready.
Union: WHAT?!
Grand Moff Tarkin (AT&T): You're far to trusting. But don't worry, we will deal with your money problems soon enough. In fact, you've all been given a promotion right into unemployment...
Union: NO!!!
Suddenly, customers on all the other major cellular networks felt a great disturbance in the Cellular Network, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible happened.
AT&T uses the Death Star as its logo?!?!? ;)
But seriously, in THIS economy they wanna strike? Ummm OK. Watch AT&T pull a Ronald Regan and just fire all striking employees and replacement them in two hours with any of the millions of unemployed people.
Really, I thought Engadget readers were a tad smarter then this.
So yes, ATT mobility, go ahead and replace 20,000 SENIOR LEVEL employees with HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars experience, with some entry level people... that'll go over very well.
To all you people who just think these employees are replaceable in a day, week or YEARS for that matter... You Are Stupid!
@PHO - You should probably look into what you're talking about... The comment you made ("So yes, ATT mobility, go ahead and replace 20,000 SENIOR LEVEL employees with HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars experience, with some entry level people... that'll go over very well.") seems to be born of total ignorance and complete assumption.
AT&T Mobility do not have 20,000 senior managers. AT&T's Mobility division isn't the countless army you think it is. As a former wireless industry professional, I can tell you that NO wireless company has that many senior managers.
On a side note, I though managers can't be in a union. No? (see how I check, before I make a comment about something I don't really know).
@PHO
Survival of a company is more important than anything else, and many times you have to think about the short term and hope you squeeze enough time to make better long term plans.
Senior or not, strike is a bad idea. Especially when most companies are laying off people, including other "senior level" workers from other companies.
AT&T actually has the upside, and the union is giving them a reason to not given into the demand because they probably were looking for ways to cut labor costs which is in most companies the most expensive cost.
M
@BigDaddy
I hear yah bigdaddy woot woot (sorry had to say that)..
Anyways, I do agree with you, but I highly doubt that a company that is turning in black ink instead of red is looking to lay off.. I really doubt that highly, especially given the current economic situation. What actually would drive the company down would be employing a bunch of "technicians" to repair cell sites, who don't know how to. This is going to cause a shift of customers away from the AT&T service, as there network will be unreliable at best.
AT&T Mobility needs to get these workers back as soon as possible.
Also, the STRIKE ISN'T AUTHORIZED YET!
We will find out 100% at midnight.
Thank You!
I would find it amusing that any CWA-represented AT&T Wireless employee would think the company has not been planning for a strike in the first place. The beauty of all of this is that the Mobility division can easily hire T-Mobile folks since the networks are practically identical, and the two companies often hire each other's employees.
But, this isn't the big focus of the company. 20K non-management employees is nothing to what is coming up between April and August. A strike at the wireless division would only seem like practice for the real deal in the other divisions.
BTW, I like the logo. I think the Imperial logo should be a key marketing concept. :)
@PHO
giving you the benefit of the doubt, 20,000 employees worth HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars in experience is about $45 a piece.
sorry, had to say it :-P
nerdtalker is hillarious!!! death star. I love it
Something tells me this is not going to end well...
Does anyone else feel like unions in the US have evolved from being an excellent check on unethical business owners to a caricature of itself? I'm all for fair wages and such, but I think unions have gone in absurd directions. Case in point, I was at the WWDC last year waiting in line for my badge. The auditorium was running out of room. To make a bit more space one of the WWDC guys started pushing some of the tables into the corner. As he was doing this a convention center employee comes running over yelling at him to stop because any labor within the convention center must be done by union workers. Absurdity.
Oh no....it gets worse than that. Ask anyone who has had to set up a booth at a trade show. Here is an example I experienced when I worked for a computer who was showing at Comdex in Las Vegas. First....all movement of materials to the booth had to be done by teamsters. Everything, failure to comply would result in random "missing" both components or "forklift accidents". My personal favorite was when we started to set up the computers. We weren't allowed to set them up. The rule was anything that conducted electricity had to be installed by a union electrician. I do mean ANYTHING. Keyboards, mice, monitors...etc. All had to be plugged in by a union electrician. I personally got to follow around one of these bozos for hours saying, "take that plug there, stick it in that connector there", because he didn't know how to set up a computer. I had to do this for every computer in the booth (about 40).
You may not like unions right now, but if they ever disappear and you have to work for minimum wage doing the same job you could have made 60-100k doing in a union, you'll probably change your tune :P
@Rand:
Dude, following a union worker as he set up 40 computers must have been painful.
@BananaBoat: You are not going to find a stronger union supporter than me, having grown up in a family where we endured multiple teacher strikes (both my parents are professors.) However, that Teamsters story about setting up 40 computers is COMPLETELY INDEFENSIBLE. The Teamsters should be completely ashamed of themselves, and I don't care if my saying so leads to retribution: It's true. If your negotiations yielded you the gold mine that only you can set up computers, you are OBLIGATED to send a guy who knows how to set up computers. Otherwise you are STEALING the wages you negotiated for.
Hell thats nothing, years ago my uncle work on set for some studio as a member of the electrical union. One set toppled over and pin an actor, not thinking my uncle ran to help this guy get out. He got about two seconds into helping before the union boss jumped down his through and made him DROP the piece repining the actor. seems only people from the union handling the sets could touch them. The guy laid there for twenty minutes waiting for the right union member, and my uncle got written up by the union boss! Unions today SUCK!
500,000 Americans out of work last week and Unions have the audacity to authorize a strike!
Good luck with that.
shouldnt be hard to fill 20k job openeings with 600k looking for work since last month alone.
And was it organized labor that got us to this collapse? Remember why we got here! It wasn't unions that got us to this point. And for some reason the union stereotype lives on in the hearts and minds of every facet of our society. A long slow death for unions and the middle class and 2/3 of our economic engine: spending.
/tips hat to you
@Ray--I think if things go as you say I don't think AT&T will be able to claim "fewest dropped calls" anymore. Not that they should have been able to in the first place...
will ATT shut off my COU if we strike?!
@Bunklung:
Really? Unions had nothing to do with our current economic problems? Are you seriously that uninformed or just pretending to be? Take two minutes to explain why ALL American car makers are failing to remain profitable, without mentioning the union worker's extremely high wages and retirement agreements. You will either fail to do so, or prove your ignorance on the subject.
so ummmmmmmmm yea........is this REALLY a GOOD idea in OUR Economy??
?!?!?!....??!?!?!......?!?!!??!???
These things I find in ALL your posts, please try to correct your sloppiness.
no sloppiness involved dude. if you dont like the way I post dont read it.
BTW I havent done it on Joystiq in over a week
Good for you, but try be like hat everywhere, not just Joystiq where you voted down instantly for typing like that
bah.....I am just doing it for the month....I could care less really
*that
couldn't*
Yeah, I am thinking scabs might not be so hard to come by... morons. We should all be happy just to be employed at this point.
I guess thats what they want you to think. People have no rights, your will do as your told. You will suffer the consequence of our greed. We will get richer while you get poorer.
Oh, btw... Please enjoy your future!!!!!!
I recently got a call from a recruiter that started out as: "so there is a possibility of a strike at ATT in Seattle"
to which I politely advised him that I would not be a blackleg scab for ATT or anyone else. I worked for SBC before/during the ATT buyout, and all I can say is that based on my experience it's no surprise
Shouldn't they just be glad they have jobs at this point?
You know what, I'm glad there is a union, to show that people aren't just "GLAD" to have a flippin job.
But that there services to that job ARE WORTH SOMETHING!
Everyone needs to get this stupid mentality of "Thank god I've got a job" out of there moronic brains, or we are all screwed.
Go To School.
PHO. I went to school... I now have upward of 10 full years of college education. I have a fabulous job and am VERY glad I have that, and hope I keep it. I was looking for a job over a year, 8 months of that after graduation with my Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. The current job market is extremely harsh for everyone, from high school educations, service jobs, skilled labor, up through engineering and management with Masters and post-graduate degrees. McDonalds restaurants has enabled a hiring freeze nation wide... and when fast food companies are not hiring to fill open positions you should be seriously concerned about keeping yours whatever it is.
Anyone willing to strike over relatively minor changes to their benefits packages is taking a serious risk with their well-being and future in our current economic climate. This union does not appear to be keeping the financial security of their workers in mind. For that reason, I believe most unions serve their own purposes, not that of their workers as they should... and as they were intended to do. The majority of unions in the US job market are relics of an industrial revolution and should be dismantled. The prime example is the UAW, which has been a major contributor to the failure of American car manufacturers and the economic collapse of the metropolitan Detroit area.
@PHO:
You go to fucking school, douche nozzle. It's "their", not "there".
Hmmm...or could it be that AT&T is treating their workers worse than ever due to over-severe reactions to the economy. I don't know the full situation, but I'm willing to hear both sides before judging 'em
I just got a raise from at&t (i work in FL for them) aswell as my benefits are great... no complaints from me as an employee....
phone hacking community... looks like tmobile will be getting a ton of iphone subscribers...!!!!
I totally agree! This is a serious reason you should NEVER buy a locked device! Do the research first, get a phone for the bands you feel work best for you and are broadest and screw the contracts, lock outs, and land fill devices 'cause they're useless elsewhere.
The network should be just fine. I worked during the last AT&T strike about 4 - 5 years ago. No major problems were reported. AT&T white collar employees have been training to fill union jobs for the past few months.
The union workers will do dbag stuff like call into the operator and ask for some bogus phone listing just to suck up the time on the phone making real customers wait in line even longer.
Yeah unions suck balls. Heck, they're the primary reason GM, Chyrstler, and Ford are in trouble now. These damnd spoil union workers. (sorry, going off on a tanget)
"Heck, they're the primary reason GM, Chyrstler, and Ford are in trouble now"
You're an idiot
Just like there's nothing wrong with Communism.
I kind of agree with you. The car maker unions are certainly a large part of the reason of the failure of those American car companies. The initial government bailout failed due to the unions not willing to take a pay cut. I'm assuming that is what you meant by the reason for their failure. But as to the causes leading up to this point, it was probably a combination of the lack of innovation and market foresight (picking SUVs over economy due to their higher markup and profit when it was obvious the trend was going towards compact fuel efficient cars) and the Union's lax attitude towards making a better product. When there is no fear of termination, quality in workmanship declines. If Toyota and Honda have no Unionized workers and they make a better product(according to sales) with lower wages and higher employee satisfaction and production, how could GM even compete profit wise?
Exactly. The big three put all their eggs in one basket in the suv and came out on the losing end. The union is probably the second biggest hurt they endured. I see i was down voted, thanks nerds i appreciate it
@ I'm not iEye
They should be protected only if they are really giving 110%.
If you think GM and AT&T are in the same situation maybe you should check their balance sheets first. Do the research or shut up!