News

AT&T Legacy T Bargaining Report #10

18 Mar, 2015

Despite all of the lip service the Company has given us about the importance of training and the need to get everyone ready for the technological changes required for 2020, the Company’s proposal for Alliance funding today points in the opposite direction. Their proposal would cut the funding by over 50%.

The Alliance has been one of the most successful programs we’ve ever created. Aside from helping people retrain when they are surplus, the Alliance runs the Certification Program under Article 43 and has been the main vehicle for training that upgrades skills people can use on and off the job. Not only do our members use it and applaud it, but many Company business unit leaders also praise it constantly.

With the Company’s training plans for us being so vague, more and more Company sponsored training is either non-existent or web based, The Alliance is needed more than ever. This proposed cut digs deep into the heart of our ability to be part of the future of AT&T.

They also rejected the Union’s demand to reinstate the AT&T scholarships that helped many of our children pay for college. Again, at a time when student debt is the highest in history, AT&T says it is good enough to send us to other sources for scholarship help.

They did propose the continuation of TAP (Tuition Assistance Plan) but, despite saying across the table they want to be able to add to the programs they will pay for, the language they passed gives them the right to both add and subtract. Based on past experience we cannot trust that change.

They did put into writing some of the improvements coming in ATS and extended both Career Support Coordinator Positions.

The Union proposed improvements in termination pay for Article 43 and 45, which is currently considerably less than the Termination Pay in Article 25.

Thursday is Health Care Action Day (see attached flyer). We hope you are all finding ways to show the company that messing with our benefits is a SICK IDEA.

Your bargaining team,

Bill Bates

Laura Unger

Lois Grimes-Patow

Isa Shabazz

Martha Flagge

Mary Ellen Mazzeo

LaNell Piercy

Roy Hegenbart

Cindy Neumeyer