Letter to FCC Reveals AT&T?s Commitment To Jobs

AT&T submitted a six-page letter to the FCC which spells out the company’s commitment to retain and increase employment following its proposed merger with T-Mobile.

In a point-by-point refutation of its critics, AT&T reiterates that “with the additional scale, spectrum and other resources of the combined company, this merger will enable AT&T to deploy 4G LTE mobile broadband service to more than 97 percent of the U.S. population – including 55 million more Americans and over one million more square miles than without the merger.”

The letter specifically contests points made by nonprofits Public Knowledge and Free Press in public filings, including:

• Post-merger job guarantee for all AT&T and T-Mobile non-management employees. AT&T commits to offer any current AT&T and T-Mobile non-management employee whose job function is eliminated as a result of the merger another job with the company. The CWA contract with AT&T already contains this provision. AT&T affirms that it will extend this to T-Mobile non-management employees: "Any T-Mobile non-management employee whose job function is not required after the merger will be offered another position in the company."
• No lay-offs. AT&T will rely primarily on natural attrition – employees retiring, taking other jobs, etc.-- if the company eliminates any jobs due to redundant functions.
• Job guarantee for all call center employees. The merger will not result in any job losses for U.S.-based wireless call center employees of T-Mobile USA or AT&T who are on the payroll when the merger closes.
• Return 5,000 wireless call center jobs to the U.S. that today are outsourced to other countries.

And AT&T clarifies in very strong language something few American corporations are willing to do: commit to a unionized workforce.

“Public Knowledge and Free Press ignore the fact that AT&T is the only major unionized wireless provider in the U.S. and that labor unions representing 20 million workers and educators … have expressed their support for the merger.”

Further, the letter quotes from CWA President Larry Cohen congressional testimony: “the expansion of AT&T’s 4G LTE network that will result from the merger holds the potential to create thousands of new jobs,” and “AT&T’s management has worked in partnership with CWA to ensure that past mergers worked to the benefit of AT&T’s employees, and this transaction will be no different.”

T-Mobile employees are already experiencing job cuts, as management responds to subscriber loss. A merger with AT&T, a financially healthy company committed to invest billions of dollars in high-speed broadband expansion, provides T-Mobile employees the best option for the future.

AT&T's job commitments stand in stark contrast to employment practices of the other potential T-Mobile buyer, Sprint. Sprint outsources 70 percent of its customer service work, much of it offshore, and is the only wireless carrier to outsource network management, where the work is performed overseas. Sprint has a long history of anti-union behavior.

AT&T Letter to the FCC (Oct. 13, 2011)