AT&T and Communications Workers of America in Negotiations Again

Cable, Internet and telephone companies like AT&T just seem to go round and round with labor unions. In the newest round, AT&T workers' contracts in the midwest have expired and the contracts are under renegotiation.

Although the AT&T employees voted to go on strike if a new agreement was not reached by the time the current one expired, the AT&T Internet and telephone fiber installers and other workers remain on the job. The current contracts covering two groups of AT&T employees expired recently. The union that covers the worker is the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The groups of workers make up about 14,000 AT&T workers in each area.

The CWA union wants to ensure that the workers get affordable health care and sufficient retirement benefits under the new contract. Union officials have said the workers would go on strike if they needed to.

You may remember that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made a promise last year that AT&T would hire an additional 7000 new employees if last years tax cut that was passed.

AT&T provides phone, Internet and video to much of America. The company can trace its lineage all the way back to Alexander Graham Bell and the Bell Telephone System more than a hundred years ago.