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?

Comments

Union had already negotiated bonus

[rminsk]

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.

NOT THAT TIME WARNER

[EvilSS]

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.

Trickle down economics doesn't work

[rsilvergun]

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...

Re:Trickle down economics doesn't work

[Dutchmaan]

So you're asking for evidence about the GOP using their tax scam to attack social services (something that has been fully PREDICTED for decades) and THEN proceed to say "Democrats created a welfare state by telling black women to kick out their men." while not OFFERING any evidence....

Essentially you make up the "What's crazy is that 32% of the population still support this bill (I'm not counting the 1% of the 33%)"

Re:Trickle down economics doesn't work

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Whatever you are smoking, get more of it. It seems to be a doozy.

If government takes the money it will spend it in America. Even if it is a waste, white elephant boondongle bridge to nowhere, it is money spent in America. Every dollar spent by X is a dollar earned by Y. This will stimulate the economy.

Give a microscopic tax cut to the actual citizens and give billions to corporations (who are people), they will invest it in India, China, Taiwan and other places. We will be empowering economies to compete with us, while sapping the Americans of the energy to live and consume.

Why are you ignoring the hiring?

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:Why are you ignoring the hiring?

[SuperKendall]

The system as whole includes the $1 *BILLION* increase in capital spending next year (which as mentioned will add about 7k jobs), what a shame you cannot read or you could have avoided beclowning yourself.

Re: Why are you ignoring the hiring?

[kenh]

Follow the link in the summary, AT&T is cutting 600 jobs, not 'thousands'.

Re:Why are you ignoring the hiring?

[Xyrus]

The bonuses had nothing to do with the tax cut. That was part of a union negotiation from earlier this year. Needless to say, it was likely the firing of those employees that lead to the bonuses for the others.

And stop calling it a tax-cut. That's BS marketing. You don't call a cash advance on a credit card a paycheck do you? The tax scam borrowed a huge chucnk of money, gave most of it to the rich and corporations, and then limited the cuts on everyone else so that when the bill comes due it's the middle class and lower who gets to pay it all back.

That's assuming that they aren't forced to pay it back sooner as states will now have to make up the shortfall that will inevitably be a result of the non-discretionary cuts (that you can bet the republicans are masturbating over) next year. Higher state and local taxes are coming your way, and these fuckers know it which is why they capped SALT.

But math is a liberal conspiracy, so keep believing whatever makes you happy.

More conspiracy crap

[JustNiz]

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.

Re: Will you just rename the site already

[rogoshen1]

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?

Those two things aren't related

[rsilvergun]

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.