Since August 16, union members from Communications Workers of America in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky have been on strike — looking to leverage and lobby for substantive bargaining with contracts involving AT&T Southeast.
Of the more than 17,000 technicians, customer service representatives and many others responsible for residential and business wireline networks in region, some of them reside and work in, and around, Trigg County.
Several of them took to picketing near their maintenance facility located along Main Street in Cadiz Monday morning, just across from Trigg County High School.
In a written statement to the public, CWA District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt said they entered into discussions looking forward to reaching “a fair contract,” but had recently been met at the table by company representatives who were “unable to explain their own bargaining proposals.”
In an e-mail to AL.com, AT&T Corporate Communications Executive Jim Greer said the company had been “engaged” in major discussions with all parties since “day one,” and that they are eager to reach an agreement that benefits “hard-working employees.”
Greer also noted three other such agreements have already been reached, involving more than 13,000 employees, and that a tentative contract with West District 9 has been agreed upon prior to this delay.
Last Friday, CWA officials said they had filed an “unfair labor practice” charge against AT&T with the National Labor Relations Board — accusing the communications giant of “sending representatives…to the table without decision-making authority.”
Services aren’t expected to be interrupted along the southeastern portion of the United States, but wages and well-being of employees have been leading topics in these recent discussions.
