CALIFORNIA, NEVADA -- Seventeen thousand AT&T technicians and call center staff in California and Nevada went on a grievance strike Wednesday morning in protest of the company’s illegal actions. The company has shown disrespect to the bargaining process by changing the work assignments of workers without bargaining as required by federal law. Further, AT&T reneged on an agreement to resolve the dispute without any explanation. The workers are represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
As talks drag on to settle a new contract, AT&T has been violating the current terms and conditions of employment by forcing technicians on the West Coast to do work that is outside their areas of expertise and threatening their ability to deliver the best services for their customers.
“We are on strike today because AT&T is hurting us all by violating their bargaining obligations with the union. AT&T technicians work around the clock to make sure our customers get the high-quality service they need and depend on, and we are building AT&T’s billions of dollars in profits,” said Robinson Paiz, a maintenance splicer from Los Angeles who is on strike today and who has worked at AT&T for 17 years. “We don’t want to let our customers down, but AT&T left us with no other choice. AT&T needs to get serious and honor its contract with us so we can keep servicing our customers.”
Workers are on strike and picketing at AT&T call centers and offices throughout California and Nevada, with major picket lines in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.
CWA is filing an unfair labor charge with the National Labor Relations Board to protest these illegal changes.
The strike comes as the workers bargain with the company for a new contract and have been working without a contract for nearly a year. In addition, approximately 2,200 DIRECTV satellite and warehouse workers in California and Nevada joined CWA in April 2016 and are in negotiations with AT&T for a first contract. The workers are growing increasingly frustrated with the company’s attempts to short-change California and Nevada working families and communities.
Nationwide, more than 21,000 AT&T wireless customer service and field workers are working under a contract extension that can be terminated with 72 hours’ notice as they continue to bargain with the company. In the last week, wireless workers have intensified their calls on AT&T executives to end to offshoring and outsourcing and have joined rallies and pickets coast to coast demanding good jobs that support their families and quality customer service.
AT&T reported $41.8 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016 and has posted profits of more than $1 billion a month over the previous 12 months.
While AT&T is extremely profitable, the company has become disconnected from the day to day issues facing workers and customers. Despite the financial success, the company is asking its workers to do more for less -- keeping them from their families with unpredictable overtime, undercutting pay and advancement, offshoring good jobs, and pushing more healthcare costs onto employees. At the same time, customers are paying increasingly higher bills to AT&T for essential services. The issues raised by AT&T workers are similar to those raised by Verizon workers last year in a 45-day strike.
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