About 37,000 AT&T Workers Go On Three-Day Strike (reuters.com)

Roughly 37,000 AT&T workers -- less than 14 percent of the company's total workforce -- began a three-day strike on Friday after failing to reach an agreement with the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier over new contracts. Reuters reports: This is the first time that AT&T wireless workers are on strike, which could result in closed retail stores during the weekend, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union. The workers on strike are members of the CWA. The workers are demanding wage increases that cover rising healthcare costs, job security against outsourcing, affordable healthcare and a fair scheduling policy. Slightly over half of the workers on strike are part of the wireless segment and the rest wireline workers, including a small number of DirecTV technicians, AT&T spokesman Marty Richter told Reuters. The CWA had said on Wednesday that wireless workers across 36 states and Washington, D.C. would walk-off their jobs if an agreement was not reached by Friday 3 p.m. ET.

Comments

A solution

[zuckie13]

Let's solve this Baseball Style: Either you come to a quick agreement or You each get to tell give your offer to an arbitrator. He gets to pick one of them. One of you wins, the other will be pissed. Maybe motivation to agree.

Re:A solution

[sexconker]

But you can still punish them for missing their assigned shifts.

Going on a union-approved strike doesn't change that unless your union is protected by a labor contract that says otherwise, or the industry is regulated to the point that they can't fire you and replace you with scabs, and you're not "at will" or in a "right to work" state.

I can't remember the last time when a company decided to flush the toilet and get rid of all union labor and rehire a fresh workforce at a much lower cost, but I'd like to see it happen in a few industries (and I'd like to see the opposite happen in a few others).

Re:A solution

[dywolf]

all hail the corporate overlords and woe be to those who dare stand up for themselves.

Re:Contradictory summary?

[ShanghaiBill]

Also, going on strike doesn't seem like a good way to convince your employer to not outsource your job.

Re:Contradictory summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's technicians.
Basically the outsourcing would be that they lose their jobs, the parts of AT&T that they were part of the budget of gets big bonuses for having attained such spectacular savings, and the company - separately - hires subcontractors to do what used to be your job for lower worker pay but a higher actual cost to the company after the subcontractor's profit margins are actually taken into account.

This way, technicians are fired, other technicians are underpaid, whoever slashed the positions at AT&T gets rave performance reviews, thus everybody wins!

Everybody being because workers and customers aren't people.

Nobody will notice

[nospam007]

When you try to contact them for any problem, you think they have been on strike for _years_.

Re:Contradictory summary?

[dywolf]

its also involving linemen. their work gets sub contracted

And no one will notice.

[biggaijin]

AT&T's service will be exactly the same with all their employees on strike. Their customers will not notice any difference.