On August 23, 20,000 workers at AT&T Southeast, members of the Communications Workers of America, told the company we’re fed up. 3,500 of the workers who took part in this strike are in Louisiana. These workers do everything from customer service to major infrastructure. It’s from these workers’ labor that AT&T draws its enormous profits. Until the workers carried out the strike, the company had been refusing to negotiate according to the requirements of the law. After four days of work stoppage, AT&T was forced back to the bargaining table.
AT&T is broken up into different regions and the company and union had settled contracts in other regions. In yet another display of discrimination and hatred toward southern workers, AT&T Southeast had arrogantly refused to negotiate with its workers in good faith. The union could have demonstrated its solidarity and commitment to southern workers by postponing settlements in the other regions until AT&T Southeast sat down to negotiate. Fortunately, southern workers showed leadership with this strike.
On August 30, CWA announced the settlement of a new 5 year contract which includes wage increases of 13.25 percent and improvements to pensions and health insurance plans. Workers at AT&T Southeast show that the power of a union comes from its members and their determination to strike when the bosses try to cheat them.