AT&T "Legacy T" Bargaining Report #25

April 9, 2009

During the last two days, the Union has been questioning the Company on every change in every Article in the "final" proposal the Company dumped on the bargaining table at 2:30 a.m. Sunday (after the Contract expired).  This has been a very lengthy process as the Company scrambles to try to justify their unjustifiable proposals.

We have also been slamming them on why they rejected Union proposals that were still being discussed on the final day.  From our demand to stop forced overtime for our members in Article 36 to our comprehensive proposal to bring Articles 45 and 46 into line with the rest of the Contract, the Company mindlessly repeats over and over, "We don't want to increase our costs"; "We don't want to limit our flexibility."  While they demand "consistency" in the agreement when it takes our rights and benefits away from us, they NEVER want consistency when it means our members will see improvements.  We also hammered away at the Company attack on job security in Article 43, where they are attempting to take away our watermark of jobs and the language that requires them to replace full-time contractors with regular full-time employees.

A good part of yesterday was spent going over their health care proposal, which we will continue today.

We agreed to recess for the weekend.  The next report will be on Monday.

For those of you working this weekend, remember – NO BUSINESS AS USUAL.