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AT&T Sheds Thousands of Employees After Touting GOP Tax Plan, Giving Out Bonuses (appleinsider.com)
Prior to Christmas, AT&T and DirecTV gave layoff notices to a large number of landline, legacy service, and home installers spanning the country. "It is not clear if the firings relate to the pending AT&T and Time Warner acquisition, or how it specifically relates to the announcement that the company was giving $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 employees in commemoration of the tax overhaul signed just before Christmas," reports Apple Insider. Slashdot reader deadwill69 writes: Just more doublespeak after they announced their bonus program to justify the tax cuts. Seems they really didn't mean it after all. "Technology improvements are driving higher efficiencies, and there are some areas where demand for our legacy services continues to decline, and we're adjusting our workforce in some of those areas as we continue to align our workforce with the changing needs of the business," AT&T said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune. "Many of the affected employees have a job offer guarantee that ensures they'll be offered another job with the company, and we'll work to find other jobs for as many of them as possible." Let's hope they keep that promise. On a bright note: their service really couldn't get much worse?
The workers union, Communication Workers of America, were trying to negotiate a raise of $4000 for the workers. The $1000 bonus came out of those talks earlier in the year. AT&T’s announcement comes one week after the company reached a new contract agreement with its workers. The contract came after a year of pressure from the workers’ union.
AT&T is trying to buy Time Warner the media company (Warner Brothers Studios, Turner Broadcasting, HBO, etc), not Time Warner Cable (TWC) the cable company which Charter already bought.
Just putting it out there before the inevitable posts about AT&T buying another ISP.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
And everybody knows this. What's crazy is that 32% of the population still support this bill (I'm not counting the 1% of the 33%). On the other hand 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Sure, the $1.5 trillion in new debt from this bill is already being used to by Paul Ryan et al argue for entitlement 'reform' (e.g. taking them away from anyone under 55). But you know what? A lot of us are just trying to make it until our kids are on their own. Sure, best case this is $200/mo in your pocket per person. But if you and your wife both suddenly have $400/mo that's a car payment and gas.
Bills like this take advantage of the desperate situation most Americans find themselves in. What sucks the most is, that entire situation is completely by design...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
And AT&T is what.. a cantaloupe grower? Last I heard they were in the tech business (telecom, which is the used car salesmen of tech, but still tech)
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
You could have replaced AT&T with your cantaloupe grower of choice and the intent of the submission would be the same.
Over 200k people got bonuses (and also lower taxes), that's much better than a few thousand being laid off.
It also does not detract from the many other companies that gave bonuses also...
Meanwhile AT&T is also hiring into new positions, why is that not factored in? Some jobs will always be lost, and others gained. That has nothing to do with the tax bill - they will ramp up hiring as they already said: "Every $1 billion in capital invested in the telecom industry creates about 7,000 jobs for American workers, research shows.". It's still a net gain of workers in the end.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Cable/Satellite TV market in the USA is dying on its feet, thanks to the big companies refusing to be flexible and alternative services like Netflix providing better options for less. The layoffs are all legacy/TV related and simply reflect this.
Well I guess it's nice that they gave some bonus money to rank and file employees before the layoff, vs just the c-levels (per the norm).
So progress perhaps?
to the tax cuts, any more than the bonuses were. The Bonuses were a hard fought and hard won victory by the Union that AT&T is taking credit for. What's more, they were a pyrrhic victory; the Union was trying to get pay raises but thanks to our shit economy for workers (which somehow posts record stock market wins every other day) they couldn't.
Similarly, AT&T isn't hiring because of the Tax cuts, their CEO admitted that already. They're hiring because they need workers. Again, Trickle down doesn't work. Businesses hire workers to meet demand. You're trying to put cart before horse. Giving the rich money doesn't increase demand because one person can only spend so much in a day.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
and you should be ashamed of yourself. Middle class and low income tax cuts are good. Both need relief. 62% of the tax cuts in this bill go to the 1% in the first 10 years. After that 100% go to them, since all the middle class tax cuts expire then.
Meanwhile we are borrowing money to give it away to the ultra rich. That borrowed money is being used as a threat to eliminate programs that benefit the middle class and working poor. It's a massive wealth transfer to the monied aristocracy.
You know this. You are far too intelligent not to know this. Why are you doing this? Is somebody paying you? Do you think the aristocracy is going to let you join? Do you have a rich relative that's going to leave you a fortune? Or are you just angry. Really, really angry. I get it. Life sucks. The job market sucks. But this is not how to fix it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
At any given time in a large company 10-20% either don't have a job, or are underperformers. Companies that do not regularly purge this dead weight will basically turn into a typical government agency (30-40% dead weight) and go bankrupt shortly there after.
To act like this is some evil activity to fuck over the little guy is a level of stupid only found in academia (60-75% dead weight)
"People aren't buying as many satellite dishes as we'd planned."
I'm looking for a good alternative to Slashdot.
Things haven't always been good around here, but I think they're looking bleaker than they have in a long time....
Basically what I want is a site that:
* Is focused on technology, science, mathematics, engineering, computing, programming, and relevant stuff like that. ...I don't think that Slashdot can be salvaged...
* Allows anonymous commenting, because having to create an account is fucking stupid.
* Has little to no censorship, since the best discussion is free discussion where people don't fear being silenced for expressing their own opinion....
I agree things look bleak on Slashdot and it's probably not salvageable... I would also like an alternative, but I haven't found it yet. However related to your criteria I think Slashdot's anonymous commentary and utter lack of censorship has handed this site over trolls and extreme opinions which have driven away the field experts who used to participate on this site. Slashdot's ideological stand against censorship has allowed the trolls rule, reduced most discussion to nonsense and opened the door to more politically-slanted submissions. There is an area between censorship and enforcing rules to foster discussion/community, which Slashdot has completely failed at.
This article is laughable. Large companies are constantly, every single day, laying off employees somewhere, someplace. And if they are a growing company, as most successful companies are, they actually add more employees than they lay off. AT&T has 273,000 employees total and laying off 600+700+215 equates to 0.55% of their total workforce and no where near any definition of a "large number" of employees.
Cry me a River, snowflakes.
Any which way you measure it, the US economy is booming and every one of us willing to work is benefiting.
besides being factual
Oh, if only it was...
AT&T is shedding 600 employees, not 'thousands' - does anyone at /. even read the title before publishing a post?
Six hundred employees out of 200,000 is what, about 3/10th of one percent of their workforce.
Ken
A thousand out f 200,000 is a tiny percentage, and a number of them are being offered other jobs within the company.
GE famously cut the bottom 1% of employee's each year, twice as many (by percentage) as this one-time AT&T cut - I don't remember the economy collapsing after those ANNUAL terminations.
Ken
Just adding my firsthand experience at AMD. I was working there in 1988 during the presidential campaign. There were lots of rumors that the company was in trouble and needed to start laying people off, but...
The owner of the company was a big supporter of Poppy Bush. Lots of "Don't worry, be happy" messages were distributed.
After the election and Poppy's victory, the message changed. "Off with their heads."
I actually survived those cuts, but the rise of Quayle contributed strongly to my decision to leave the country. Things got much worse after that.
Honest Abe Lincoln would NEVER believe what today's Republican Party has become. Liars and hypocrites with a smattering of fools. My only question now is how much blame to give the Dixiecrats when they switched to the GOP. Maybe Nixon and Dubya deserve less blame?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
AT&T and DirecTV gave layoff notices to a large number of landline, legacy service, and home installers spanning the country ... ...
the company was giving $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 employees in commemoration of the tax overhaul
Apparently those bonuses will be in lieu of paychecks. Sounds like a win-win for corporations and politicians.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
https://www.reddit.com/r/econo...
Coward
I love that one. It's right up there with "trickle-down economics" and "tree pollution."
Here's how that works:
1. You work for MegaCorp in City A. You've lived here for 10 years. You're settled in, and around 40 on the age scale, with a wife and two kids.
2. You're told you're going to be laid off, but they have a job for you in City R, some 700 miles away. The job is yours, if you're willing to move. They'll even give you a moving incentive? But no raise.
3. You pull up stakes, pack up your family, put your house on the market, and move to City R. After a few months on the market, your house in City A sells for around the asking price. However, you didn't break even with the purchase in City R, so you're back in the hole for a mortgage.
4. You've been in City R for a year and a half, now. The economy is okay, things are doing well, and your department is doing well. But somebody in the upper echelons isn't happy with their profits, and decides to shut down all operations in City R.
5. Everyone in City R is offered a job in City X, which is only 500 miles away this time.
You now have a choice:
1. Take a chance on MegaCorp's offer of a job in City X. However, you aren't going to get a raise. But they *do* promise -verbally- that there won't be any layoffs for a year. And you have to repeat steps 2 and 3, with no guarantee that you won't have to repeat 4 and 5 in another year.
2. Take whatever severance package they offer, and bail. However, you're now at the high-end of where age discrimination gets serious, and your prospects are slim at best.
And the best part of this pretty little operation? The silver lining that only those at the top get to enjoy?
It completely eliminates three entire classes of workers.
1. It eliminates anyone with a family.
2. It eliminates anyone that can't move on 30 days notice.
3. It eliminates anyone who isn't willing to work for slave wages.
It's a formula that has worked every time.
[End Of Line]
Nice articles . Free Job Alert
I see a lot of commenters crowing about how much more value they deliver than the people who got laid off. Pretty soon, the axe is coming for everyone who isn't an executive as companies figure out a way to automate or eliminate work done by people altogether. That's the big long-term thing we have to worry about.
I guess I'm one of those people who want a corporate class that's more loyal toward their employees. It was only a few decades ago that people didn't have to hop from job to job every few years, uprooting their families and dealing with uncertainty.
If I were running things, i think I'd concentrate tax reform on efforts that made it difficult to get rid of employees. Similar to the way the tax code used to encourage home ownership for individuals, it can be done with companies as well. make it so that retaining and paying employees is cheaper tax-wise than retaining the extra earnings you'd keep from firing them. I'm sure everyone will say this is a make-work program, but this is what we need. Unless we're willing to give up money as a store of value, those that can't produce at the same levels as others will revolt against those that can.
From the summary: On a bright note: their service really couldn't get much worse?
The noise on my land line got worse and worse. I called ATT, they sent out an idiot. I explained the problem; the idiot says, "You probably have a little short." Needless to say the idiot couldn't fix the problem. I canceled my land line and haven't missed it, especially the endless sales calls, most of which had faked originating phone numbers.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
The landline phone business and cable TV businesses are both dying. I cut the cable a couple years ago for my TV. When I traded my landline for an IP phone about seven years ago, I discovered that I was almost the last among my Silicon Valley co-workers to do it. The Republican tax plan doesn't have anything to do with this; it is just the dying gasp of a couple obsolete businesses.
And there is your problem. The entire problem with Slashdot is a direct result of the abuse of the AC system.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
What would laying off wireline and other legacy installers have to do with the Time Warner acquisition? What would it have to do with anything other than, I dunno, LEGACY TELCO STUFF IS DYING.
On Dec. 16, about 600 employees were notified of the pending layoffs. Most of those were across mid-west states, with some of those including higher-skilled workers. Other layoffs by the company include "more than 700" DirectTV home installers across the country. Additionally, in December, AT&T fired 215 technicians in "nine Southern states" according to the New York Post, with another 700 reportedly coming in Texas and Missouri in February.