(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) – Now more than a month after their current contract expired, Communications Workers of America (CWA)-represented AT&T Mobility Workers are going public, asking consumers to tell the company to bargain fairly with their Employees.

During an informational picket that was held late today (Wednesday, April 19) outside an AT&T Mobility retail store on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, additional support came from not only the Western New York Area Labor Federation (WNYALF), but a number of other Local Unions.

At the event, CWA Local 1122 Executive Vice President John Mudie - who also serves as President of the Buffalo AFL-CIO Central Labor Council - told those assembled that AT&T Mobility wants its Unionized Employees to agree to lower wages and pay more for their health care coverage, and - agree to provide the company with the right to offshore jobs.

“We’re here to ‘hold the line, because enough is enough,’” Mudie told WNYLaborToday.com hours before the informational picket.  “(AT&T Mobility) ‘still wants to send our jobs out of the country’ and ‘they want us to pay much, much more for our health care - thirty-percent more.’”

“We are now asking AT&T Mobility’s customers to get involved and tell managers when they visit their retail stores to tell AT&T Mobility to ‘bargain fairly’ with their Workers,” Mudie said.

In mid-February, it was agreed the expiring CWA-AT&T Mobility contract that covers 21,000 Workers in 36 States (including CWA Districts 1- which includes New York State, Western New York and Buffalo, 2-13, 4, 7 and 9) would be temporarily extended as negotiations continued, according to www.wirelessweek.com (See wirelessweek.com’s Labor News Story at: https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2017/02/t-extends-contract-mobility-workers-union-negotiations-continue)   

The extension came after CWA-represented AT&T Mobility Workers had voted to authorize a Strike should one become necessary.

However, in a press release, CWA said the contract extension could be terminated with 72 hours’ notice and said Workers will continue bargaining with the expectation that “AT&T executives will come to the table with good faith proposals.”  

In particular, the CWA said Workers are looking for a “fair contract that ends off-shoring and outsourcing and supports high quality customer service.”

“It is a ‘righteous fight that we are proud to support,’” CWA District One Vice President Dennis Trainor said in the release. “Workers are ‘making it clear and uniting together as one movement.’  ‘We won’t rest until AT&T stops outsourcing and offshoring thousands of Call Center, Retail and Technician Jobs in communities and cities across the country.’”

In a CWA Contract Bargaining Report released Tuesday (April 18th), the Union said:

Two months into bargaining and more than a month after contract expiration, the (AT&T Mobility) shows no desire to bargain a fair and equitable contract for their Employees.  The Union spent the day going over all proposals and demanding the Company address the concerns of our Members.  The Company continues to insist on more costly benefits and five sick days for new hires, while also refusing to negotiate fair wage increases, bargain a fair commission plan, discuss job security improvements or address any of the critical issues for current Employees.  The Union is here to bargain a fair contract and will fight as long as it takes!  We will not back off the demands the Membership told us were most important to them.  We know this is a long, frustrating process, but we need mobilization to escalate and send a clear message that we are united.  Together we will win!  Stay strong Brothers and Sisters!

WNYALF President Richard Lipsitz - whose Area Labor Federation oversees five individual Central Labor Councils located in Buffalo, Niagara-Orleans, Dunkirk, Jamestown and Cattaraugus-Allegany that combine to represent just under 150,000 Unionized Workers across Western New York, told WNYLaborToday.com before the informational picket that the AT&T Mobility situation was “somewhat similar” to what CWA-represented Verizon Employees experienced last year, when nearly 40,000 Union Members struck the Telecommunications Giant for several weeks after the company has issued similar demands.

“We are ‘all taking inspiration’ from last year’s Strike, and the Western New York Area Labor Federation and its affiliated Member Unions and the Workers they combine to represent ‘will provide those CWA/AT&T Mobility Employees all they assistance that we can give them,’” Lipsitz told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.

“Whatever we can do, we will,” Lipsitz added.