Union authorizes AT&T Mobility strike; could begin today
As unfortunate as it might be, it looks like our scoop this past Tuesday was indeed spot-on and AT&T Mobility reps could be preparing to strike as early as today. While often necessary, strikes are never a good thing and in almost all instances everyone involved hopes a strike can be avoided. Sometimes a good old fashioned picket sign-wielding march around HQ is inevitable however, and it’s looking more and more like that is the case for AT&T Mobility reps fighting for what they believe to more fair compensation, employment and working conditions.
Thanks for the image, Papi!
Here’s what we know: The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union has voted, with a huge 85 percent yes vote, to authorize a strike for over 20,000 unionized AT&T Mobility employees. If union leaders do not come to terms with AT&T, the strike could begin as soon as today in 37 states where contracts are set to expire at 12:01 am tomorrow, February 8th.
Here’s what we think (thanks, tipsters!): There will be several states that do not strike initially, if indeed AT&T Mobility workers do strike. Among those states are Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and possibly Oklahoma and Indiana. Many of the workers in these regions may be called upon to cover heavily-trafficked stores in striking regions which will no doubt create a bit of tension. In fact, low-traffic stores in strike states may even be closed temporarily to provide more coverage in higher volume stores. Beyond that, we have word that staffing agencies are already being called upon (as early as this past Tuesday, in fact) to seek out coverage for stores in affected regions which certainly doesn’t go far to instill confidence on AT&T’s side of the bargaining table. Of course we’re hoping this is merely a cautionary measure and AT&T is still doing everything in its power to avoid a strike.
Any strike is not to be taken lightly but in today’s economic climate we’re rooting extra hard for both sides to put in overtime at the bargaining table until an amicable and mutually beneficial agreement can be reached. We also hope that striking AT&T employees bear the current economic conditions in mind when coming in contact with temporary workers. Millions of Americans have been laid off over the past year and work is work. In the end, let’s all just hope for a quick resolution so we can get back to making snarky comments about AT&T’s 3G speeds without the strike looming over our heads (joking fellas, you know we love you).
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
i have to say i haven’t heard anything i dont know if its because it only in certain markets or what …… i hope it doesn’t affect me today cuz man is it busy today …..
so you guys are walking out tommorow or monday?
What’s a stirke:
I HATE what ATT is doing to the RSC’s! but, none of us can afford to walk off the job and not have $ coming in. ATT Raised our quotas this month to the same as we had in December, again making it so that we cant reach upper tier for payouts. What to do.
with todays economy?
I am a AT
Ok so how is that suppose to affect the end user if AT&T workers do nothing for their own company anyways, man if i would have been CEO i would fire a few of those guys and that will knock some sense into the rest of them
With todays economy? What about 3 years from now economy when we are still under contract with discounted wages based on a recession. Have to think long term.
I get the feeling the only people that are going to be benefiting from this is the upper management of the Deathstar. There are alot of unemployed people that are willing to be scabs just to have a pay check at this point. Gives CWA basically 0 leverage. Even companies still turning a profit are looking to restructure preparing for the worst. For the Deathstar this will be like shooting fish in a barrel.
AT&T has definitely been trying to give their reps the short end of the stick. Between the increase in health care costs and reduction of other benefits AT&T is going to have to start taking us seriously. As far as I know, I haven’t heard anyone in our market being reassigned to another market temporarily, but I know the had plans last year for people to fill in at our stores when we voted to strike.
Im fine if they strike, that means they will ship me over to work in the stores again, which in turn gets me more money, per diem, more hours, mini vacation, lots of fun!! go on strike!!
@ AT&T workers
grow up. welcome to what verizon, tmobile and all other retail reps have been facing for the past 5 years… higher quotas, lower payouts, and harder to reach multipliers… i mean really? your going to strike? YOU ALL SHOULD BE FIRED. with everyone getting laid off ALL OVER THE COUNTRY and you feel that you are being under paid and over worked? your retail, suck it up. OH and by the way YOU HAVE A JOB. you bums.
@keymaker
I’m so tired of people saying 50k/year is too much money and we should be happy to just have a job.
Here is some math. If I hit my quota exactly I will have sold 80 phones. WIth an ARPU of $45/mo for a 24 mo contract and hit our $45/sale accessory quota we have
80*45*24+(80*45)= $90,000. Multiply this over 12 months and some reps are generating over a million dollars in revenue per year for the company, and that’s assuming you only barely hit quota.
Generating a million dollars in revenue doesn’t seem like “nothing” to me, all while having to keep a very high customer satisfaction rating. Aka you dont know WTF you are talking about. I know there are other financial factors such as equipment subsidy, present value of revenue, etc, but the point is there is no real reason to cut commissions at all, much less that drastically.
@Chris
You are an idiot. Its called OVERHEAD. Do you know how much it costs AT&T to cover 1 employee? Really your awesome equation means nothing. You also have to realize there is an operating cost involved in having 1 person added to the network they you minus out of your so called “revenue” each month. But I dont think you would know that because you are in retail. To stock a store, pay for the utilities, and then have to pay for you little babies to actually be employed. YOU SHOULD be happy you have a job. If 50k for working retail selling phones isnt enough go B2B or get a different job. AT&T is not forcing you to work there. YOU are.
BTW here are some things you are missing out in your little equation…
Taking 90,000 and subtract the following
Store utilities
Store insurance
Store lease?
Store bills (cleaning people, garbage, shipping etc)
Employee benefits
Employee phones
Then when you “sell” your 84 free phones minus out the cost they paid for that.
and the list goes on…..
… starting to look a little less than “90k” every month now doesnt it….
@ michaelct
Don’t be such a deutchebag.. many reps work their hearts off to make ends meet. Because you got laid off from your interior decorating job isn’t the rest of the worlds fault. AT&T has been screwing around with RSC’s commission structure for a long time now & something has to be done about it. I’m not part of the union, I’m a non-bargained employee coming from being bargained so I see both sides of the fence. Yea, they shouldn’t allow rsc’s to get the world but something had to be done.
Haha, interior decorating. Your funny except when you look at taking a retail position, with NO degree, getting full benefits, +comm, wow yeah… so hard. if you realized that things are more expensive then they were 5 years ago then you would understand thats why quotas have to be lifted, thats why hiring salaries aren’t the same as awhile back… to take into consideration the economy and the present market…. but then again how long have you been in wireless? 2 years?
im staing a simple fact. go on strike. you dont think you can be easily replaced? i was a retail rep for a long time and moved on. not because i didnt like it but because i saw the trend. its pretty simple. they have to make up for the changing economy and times. grow up.
I am an RSC at an AT&T Mobililty retail location. What sucks is I personally don’t want to strike. Our benefits, pay and everything else is great compared to many other companies out there. I have zero complaints or issues! And if there’s a strike, I’m pretty much forced to strike as well..even if I really don’t personally feel its warranted. I hate unions, because the CWA doesn’t speak for me..that’s for sure!
AT&T’s slogan, “raising the bar” has nothing to do with signal bars on your phone – it’s all about making things more and more difficult for employees. We’ve got bonus objectives that nobody understands or knows about, we’ve got a health care plan that’s designed to have employees pay into it, but never get any benefits out of…
The most recent “raising of the bar” was the announcement of no raises for salary employees on the 30th of January – this was nothing more than a ploy to gain leverage in union negotiations. The company’s profit increased by four billion dollars over last year & the officers of the company sure went out of their way to take care of themselves the day before the announcement – see the transactions on 1/29 here: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=T .
No duh the economy is bad – the fact that employees voted to strike in this environment should be some indication as to how sick employees are of having the bar raised to the point where they can barely even see it.
Good luck to all the strikers.
@ATT Corperate reps, You guys are a bunch of cry babies, I work as an agent for AT&T and have very close to the same as your corperate quotas, with one big exception, I CAN’T SELL THE iPHONE while you can… If anyone should be walking out it should be all the agents, as we are not allowed to sell the iPhone, but wal-mart and best buy can…
One more thing: One of my coworkers here has been with AT&T a long time..and she has never seen a strike. The union and the company duking it out until the very last hour, and “iminent” strikes are pretty normal. Each time the union bargains with the company, everyone freaks out about an imminent strike and there’s theatrics and drama. Then Monday rolls around, there’s a new contract in place, and everyone proceeds with business as usual. That’s what Ill be counting on!
Maybe this will disrupt your customer’s experience and convince them to change carriers. Or ATT can just pay you guys more. Either way one of us wins.
This is no news BG!, voting took place before your forst port on tuesday.
WOW, it always stikes me odd that everyone thinks that a retail sales job is so easy to do. Granted if you are just clerking thats one thing, but those of us, myself included, who actually take the time to sell the right producta and features, deal with ID10TS that damage, lose, drop in the toilet, do have a skill set that alot of other people don’t have.
I’d love to see half my customers deal with what they dish out to me because little suzy/johnny sent 5000 txt msgs and they didn’t have unlimited texting even though I told them they would need it, or why they can’t get the same price on a phone they bought 6 months ago
because they left thiers at a bar the night before.
True, most anyone can clerk a transaction, and those RSCs usually don’t last long. But those of us that earn a good living SELLING are no different from any other skilled employee that doesn’t want to have to work harder to make less and lose benifits in the process.
Funny how people can question us att employees with sarcastic statements and questions such as “with this economy” what you don’t realize is that union contracts are generally around four years long. If we sign a shitty contract now, we’d be getting raped in the future. The economy may get a little worse but it’ll eventually be back up.
I’m all for extending our current contract temporarily but att doesn’t even seem willing to do that.. They want to take things we’ve already had for the longest.
Its like being a semi-decent guy with a model looking girlfriend. Are you going to let her control your life just so you can be around a good looking girl, or will you stand up.. Hoping for the best but willing to fight.. Or worse case scenario.. Quit or strike.
None of us really are looking forward to a strike.. But we want to be on level grounds with other workers in competing companies.
Not all stores and states are going on strike. In the Southeast Area will not be going on strike since we are covered by the same union but different union contract.