AT&T

AT&T Southeast Workers End Month-Long Strike

September 23, 2024 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. Resist! AT&T, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Seventeen thousand AT&T workers in the Southeast returned to work September 16 following a month-long strike. Members of the Communications Workers (CWA) in nine states from Kentucky to Florida walked out on an unfair labor practice strike August 16 over accusations the telecom giant was bargaining in bad faith. The strike included technicians, call center workers, and others who build and maintain the AT&T network. AT&T pulled in $24 billion in profits in 2023. CWA represents over 150,000 AT&T workers in the U.S., scattered across more than a dozen collective bargaining agreements.

AT&T Southeast Strike Nears One Month

September 15, 2024 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. Resist! AT&T, California, Nevada, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Seventeen thousand AT&T workers in the Southeast have been on strike since August 16. They may be joined soon by another 8,500 workers at AT&T in California and Nevada. Workers in nine Southeast states walked out on an unfair labor practice strike four weeks ago over accusations the telecom giant has been bargaining in bad faith, including engaging in surface bargaining, not sending representatives with real authority to the table, and reneging on commitments to bargain to lower health care costs. Their contract expired August 3. “They got people at the table who can’t make the decisions—they’re just there,” said Clarence Adams, a wire technician with Communications Workers Local 3611 outside Raleigh, North Carolina.

Pensacola CWA Workers Stand Strong Against AT&T

September 1, 2024 Fight Back! News. Resist! AT&T, Florida, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights

Pensacola, FL – On a humid August morning, the sound of car horns fills the air up and down Davis Highway, each honk a note of solidarity for more than 25 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 3109. These workers, standing firm outside the AT&T worksite, are part of the largest strike currently unfolding in the United States, a powerful labor struggle involving over 17,000 CWA members across nine southeastern states. Their picket line is just one of four in the far-west of Florida’s panhandle. The strike was called as a direct response to AT&T's bad faith tactics during contract negotiations, which began in late June.

AT&T’s Slow Internet In Poor Neighborhoods Sparks Complaint

August 26, 2017 Jon Brodkin, www.arstechnica.com Resist! AT&T, FCC, Internet

By Jon Brodkin for ARS Techinica - AT&T is facing a complaint alleging that it discriminates against poor people by providing fast service in wealthier communities and speeds as low as 1.5Mbps in low-income neighborhoods. The formal complaint filed today with the Federal Communications Commission says that AT&T is violating the Communications Act's prohibition against unjust and unreasonable discrimination. That ban is part of Title II, which is best known as the authority used by the FCC to impose net neutrality rules. But as we've explained before, Title II also contains important consumer protections that go beyond net neutrality, such as a ban on discrimination in rates, practices, and offerings of services. "This complaint, brought by Joanne Elkins, Hattie Lanfair, and Rachelle Lee, three African-American, low-income residents of Cleveland, Ohio alleges that AT&T’s offerings of high-speed broadband service violate the Communications Act’s prohibition against unjust and unreasonable discrimination," the complaint says. AT&T is not immune to the ban on discrimination "merely because its discrimination is based on investment decisions," the complaint also says.

AT&T Pretends To Love Net Neutrality, Joins Protest

July 12, 2017 Karl Bode, www.techdirt.com Educate! AT&T, FCC, Internet, Net Neutrality, Protests

By Karl Bode for Tech Dirt - You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger enemy of net neutrality than the fine folks at AT&T. The company has a history of all manner of anti-competitive assaults on the open and competitive internet, from blocking customer access to Apple FaceTime unless users subscribed to more expensive plans, to exempting its own content from arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps while penalizing streaming competitors. AT&T also played a starring role in ensuring the FCC's 2010 net neutrality rules were flimsy garbage, and sued to overturn the agency's tougher, 2015 rules. So it's with a combination of amusement and awe to see the company's top lobbying and policy head, Bob Quinn, pen a missive over at the AT&T website proudly proclaiming the company will be joining tomorrow's "day of action protest" in support of keeping the existing rules intact. According to Quinn, the company still opposes the FCC's popular 2015 consumer protections, but wanted to participate in the protest because that's just how much the sweethearts at AT&T adore the open internet...

AT&T Workers Begin Three-Day Strike

May 21, 2017 David Bacon, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! AT&T, Strike, Unions, Worker Rights

By David Bacon for In These Times. Around 40,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) at AT&T walked off their jobs Friday, for a three-day strike, as pressure continues to mount on the corporation to settle fair contracts. In California and Nevada, around 17,000 AT&T workers who provide phone, landline and cable services have been working without a contract for more than a year. Last year, they voted to authorize a strike with more than 95 percent support. And in February, an estimated 21,000 AT&T Mobility workers in 36 states voted to strike as well, with 93 percent in favor. Workers had issued an ultimatum, giving company executives until 3 p.m. ET on Friday to present serious proposals. They didn't; the workers walked. It isn't the first strike at AT&T. Some 17,000 workers in California and Nevada walked off the job in late March to protest company changes in their working conditions in violation of federal law.

Imminent Strike By AT&T Workers

May 19, 2017 CWA, www.cwa-union.org Resist! AT&T, Strike, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Communications Workers of America. CWA members at AT&T Mobility put the company on notice to come up with serious proposals at the bargaining table or face a strike starting sometime on Friday. If AT&T officials refuse to negotiate fairly, AT&T wireless workers in Districts 1, 2-13, 4, 7, and 9 will walk off the job in a three-day strike. In addition, wireline workers in California, Nevada, and Connecticut, and DIRECTV workers in California, may take job action as they continue to bargain. "The clock is ticking for AT&T to make good on its promise to preserve family-supporting jobs. We have made every effort to bargain in good faith with AT&T but have been met with delays and excuses. Our message is clear: fair contract or strike. It's up to AT&T now," said CWA District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor.

In 36 States, 21,000 AT&T Mobility Workers Vote to Strike

May 5, 2017 Dan DiMaggio, www.labornotes.org Resist! AT&T, Strikes, Workers

By Dan DiMaggio for Labor Notes - Pennsylvania AT&T Mobility activists are using Facebook Live, which allows users to create live videos for a Facebook audience, to talk to members about their rights, how to fill out a grievance form, and managerial misconduct during observations. In Stiffey’s unit, managers were refusing to allow union reps to sit in on observations, in which store managers grade workers on their performance on the sales floor. So he made a video explaining to members how to demand their legal right to union representation at an investigatory interview, or "Weingarten rights." “We suggested anytime that there’s a conversation with management, ask: Is this conversation going to be recorded in any way? Is it going to be placed into my employee file? Can or will it be used for discipline in the future? Is discipline going to be handed out in this conversation?” If the answer to any of those questions is yes, the union urges members to demand a union rep. “As a result, the number of sales reps who have really stepped up and pushed for their Weingarten rights has increased dramatically,” said Stiffey.

AT&T/Time Warner: The Case Against Monster Bell

October 29, 2016 Craig Aaron, www.billmoyers.com Resist! AT&T, Merger

By Craig Aaron for Bill Moyers and Company - After AT&T announced its plans last Saturday to take over Time Warner in a multibazillion-dollar merger, a strange thing happened. Well, a bunch of strange things. First, Donald Trump unexpectedly blasted the merger, saying it was “a deal we will not approve in my administration because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Then journalists started asking hard questions about a media merger on national television, a rare sight.

Gov Avoids Warrant Requirement By Having AT&T Conduct Searches

October 27, 2016 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org Educate! AT&T, Government

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Telecommunications giant AT&T is spying on Americans for profit and helped law enforcement agencies investigate everything from the so-called war on drugs to Medicaid fraud—all at taxpayers' expense, according to new reporting by The Daily Beast. The program, known as Project Hemisphere, allowed state and local agencies to conduct warrantless searches of trillions of call records and other cellular data—such as "where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why"

Stop One Of The Biggest Mega-Mergers In History

October 26, 2016 Candace Clement, www.freepress.net Resist! ALEC, AT&T, Merger, Net Neutrality, Telecommunications

By Candace Clement for Free Press - AT&T is an enormous media, telecom and internet gatekeeper with a horrible track record of overcharging you, limiting your choices and spying on you. It’s still fighting Net Neutrality. It helps the government spy on people by turning over its customer records to the NSA. It tries to stop communities from building their own broadband networks.

NSA Spying Relies On ATT’s Generous Cooperation

August 17, 2015 Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson, www.propublica.org Educate! AT&T, NSA, Surveillance, Telecommunications

By Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson in ProPublica - THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY’S ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed NSA documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative,” while another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.” AT&T’s cooperation has involved a broad range of classified activities, according to the documents, which date from 2003 to 2013. AT&T has given the NSA access, through several methods covered under different legal rules, to billions of emails as they have flowed across its domestic networks.

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