AT&T Inc, the largest US phone company, failed to reach agreement with one of its unions to renew two employee contracts and said it will extend negotiations to reach a deal.
AT&T, based in Dallas, and Communications Workers of America (CWA) did not agree by the April 7 expiration of the East and Legacy T Core wireline contracts, the carrier said in a statement published yesterday.
The Communications Workers of America is renegotiating four separate contracts with AT&T, affecting a total of 40,000 workers. On March 31, union members voted to authorize CWA to call strikes if agreements on new contracts could not be reached.
AT&T continues to negotiate with the CWA in the Midwest and west, where the contract expired at 11:59pm, according to the carrier’s statement.
The union, which represents about 16 percent of AT&T’s 256,000 workers, has been organizing rallies and meetings to help push for a deal to address issues ranging from guaranteed weekend days off to healthcare benefits. In 2004, it led a four-day stoppage at SBC Communications Inc, which bought AT&T the following year.
“Unions are trying to maintain many things they’ve gained over the years, and it’s hard,” Ivan Smith, a partner at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, said in an interview.
“In general, the strike is the last thing a union wants. If the employer can withstand a strike, you lose all the leverage you had. You don’t make that move unless there’s no other recourse,” he said.
Last August, CWA called the end of a two-week strike by 35,000 members at Verizon Communications Inc and Verizon Wireless, when the companies agreed to extend the workers’ current contracts and resume bargaining. Verizon and Verizon Wireless, the unit it co-owns with Vodafone Group PLC, and the union are yet to reach a new agreement.
AT&T and rival Verizon regularly negotiate with unions representing larger parts of their workforce. About 55 percent of AT&T’s employees are represented by CWA, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers or other unions, according to the company’s annual report.
“We are focused on getting good contracts, and aren’t focused on a strike,” CWA spokeswoman Candice Johnson said in an interview on April 5, regarding its talks with AT&T.
Contracts covering about 120,000 employees will expire this year, according to AT&T.
“As one of the largest employers in America we’re proud of the number of high-paying, middle-class careers we’ve produced,” Marty Richter, a spokesman for AT&T, said in an e-mailed statement on April 3. “Our goal is to do everything in our power to protect those careers.”
AT&T and Verizon are negotiating new union contracts amid declining margins and rising network investment costs. Last year, AT&T’s total operating revenues rose 1.9 percent to US$126.7 billion while capital expenditure rose 3.1 percent to US$20.1 billion.
“By now, it is no longer particularly controversial to argue that returns in the Telecom business are poor,” Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein & Co, wrote in a report on March 7.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
DOLLAR CHALLENGE: BRICS countries’ growing share of global GDP threatens the US dollar’s dominance, which some member states seek to displace for world trade US president-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100 percent tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the US dollar. His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRICS alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. While the US dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed
TECH COMPETITION: The US restricted sales of two dozen types of manufacturing equipment and three software tools, and blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities US President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled new restrictions on China’s access to vital components for chips and artificial intelligence (AI), escalating a campaign to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions. The US Department of Commerce slapped additional curbs on the sale of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and chipmaking gear, including that produced by US firms at foreign facilities. It also blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities that it accused of acting on Beijing’s behalf, although it did not name them in an initial statement. Full details on the new sanctions and Entity List additions were to be published later yesterday, a US official said. The US “will
COLLABORATION: The operations center shows the close partnership between Taiwan and Japan in the field of semiconductors, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo said Tokyo Electron Ltd, Asia’s biggest semiconductor equipment supplier, yesterday launched a NT$2 billion (US$61.5 million) operations center in Tainan as it aims to expand capacity and meet growing demand. Its new Taiwan Operations Center is expected to help customers release their products faster, boost production efficiency and shorten equipment repair time in a cost-effective way, the company said. The center is about a five-minute drive from the factories of its major customers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) advanced 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer fabs. The operations center would have about 1,000 employees when it is fully utilized, the company
RSS