The four-week strike by 17,000 union workers against AT&T in the Southeast is over, ending Sunday night with an agreement on a five-year contract that provides wage hikes of more than 19%, officials said.
Only days before, negotiators had expressed frustration at what they said was a lack of progress. But Sunday, both sides praised the deal, which ended the longest strike by telecommunications workers in this region, officials said.
Richard Honeycutt, Communications Workers of America vice president representing the Southeast, gave credit to the region’s workers for hanging together as the strike threatened to stretch into a second month. That solidarity “sustained us through these difficult negotiations,” he said.
Jeff McElfresh, AT&T’s chief operating officer, said in a statement that he believes the deal is a fair one for workers.
“Our goal has been to reach fair agreements that recognize the hard work our employees do to serve our customers with competitive, market-based pay and benefits that are among the best in the nation — and that’s exactly what was accomplished,” he said. “These agreements also support our competitive position in the broadband industry, where we can grow and win against our mostly nonunion competitors.”
Key to the strike were worker concerns about pay and health care costs, and the deal included changes to both.
Health care premiums will not change for a year, then will be lower for two years with “modest monthly increases” in the final two years of the contract, according to a statement from the CWA.
Pay for all workers represented by the union will climb 19.33%, with some technicians receiving a boost of 3 percentage points more, according to the CWA. The contract is subject to approval by a vote of union members.
About 2,500 workers in metro Atlanta were part of the walkout, which was triggered Aug. 16 by union charges that the Dallas-based telecommunications giant had not been bargaining in good faith since the end of the previous contract Aug. 3.
The new contract covers technicians, customer service representatives and others who install, maintain and support AT&T’s residential and business wireline telecommunications network in nine states, including Georgia.
At the same time, a separate deal could head off a potential strike among union workers out West. About 8,500 CWA-represented workers out West had rejected an agreement that the union had previously negotiated. But over the weekend, the union and company said they had reached agreement on a new deal.
During the four week strike in the Southeast, some metro Atlanta customers reported outages in AT&T service that, they said, the company had been slow to repair.
A Walnut Grove subdivision with about 40 homes lost all of its AT&T services on Aug. 26, said resident Maxine McClanahan, who lost her television service, internet connection and landline phone. It was more than a week before she saw an AT&T representative arrive to work on the problem.
Walnut Grove is a small town in Walton County, 37 miles east of downtown Atlanta.
Calling customer service with her wireless phone was not productive, she said. “You get someone offshore telling you to turn it off and turn it back on again.”
Service was restored Sept. 6.
A neighbor, George Jenkins, said he lost phone, internet and television service, but he was most concerned about the loss of his phone. “I am 87 years old. If I had a heart attack or stroke, I wouldn’t be able to call 911,” Jenkins said.
He said while he was unhappy with AT&T, he would be hesitant to switch to another provider. “I dread the thought of having to change and start over with somebody else,” he said.
He said he called to demand credit for the time without service and was told his next bill would reflect that deduction.
Another neighbor, Monica Lashley, said she was so frustrated, she called and canceled her service. Then, she called back a week later to see what they had to offer and she reversed her course.
“I received a great deal and great customer service,” she said. “I even switched my phone lines to them.”
With many workers on strike, the company had used managers and nonunion contractors to handle repairs. CWA officials said those replacements were problematic in urgent circumstances like the repairs of damage caused in recent days by Hurricane Francine’s rampage along the Gulf Coast.
CWA officials said use of nonunion employees is bound to be inefficient since newcomers will not know what they need to know about the area or the technology to make quick repairs.
The company denied problems and said contractors were only part of the effort.
“We’ve redeployed resources from across our nationwide team — including contractors — and we will continue to work around the clock until service is restored for all impacted,” said an AT&T statement.
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