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Over 3,000 CWA members from AT&T Midwest and AT&T Legacy T urge Congress to investigate AT&T’s use of its tax cut windfall and its broken jobs promises

08 Mar, 2019

More than 3,000 CWA members from AT&T Midwest and AT&T Legacy T have written personal letters calling on their members of Congress to support an investigation into AT&T's use of its tax cut windfall and its broken promises on jobs. Keeping good, family-supporting jobs in the communities that AT&T serves has been a key issue during bargaining.

Last week, they delivered those handwritten letters to local congressional offices, sharing stories about how AT&T's actions are affecting them and their communities.

"CEO Randall Stephenson stated that [the tax cut] would promote job creation, but there are massive and deep cutting layoffs of loyal employees that helped create and maintain AT&T," wrote a CWA member from Akron, OH. "This is not corporate loyalty to the people who maintain this company. It is corporate greed catering to the top shareholders and forsaking those below just trying to earn an honest middle-class living."

"I am writing to ask you to support an investigation into what AT&T really did with its big tax cut," wrote a CWA member from Gardner, IL. "Why are you laying off thousands of workers instead of creating jobs and raising wages like Randall Stephenson promised?"

"I won't sugar coat this," wrote an AT&T worker from Milan, MI. "My job as a technician is at stake, my family depends on my income, and I cannot just be silent anymore."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you and your fellow congressmen pass corporate tax cuts for AT&T to create jobs and increase wages," wrote a service rep from Neenah, WI., who has worked at AT&T for 17 years. "Our CEO took your money and instead of creating 7,000 jobs as he promised, dismissed over 10,000 jobs. All at the same time outsourcing our jobs to India, the Philippines, and other overseas locations."

"I am a member of the Communications Workers of America and we have been trying in good faith to negotiate a new contract," wrote a member from CWA Local 2201 in Virginia. "AT&T will not commit to preserving and creating good jobs. They are also demanding that employees spend more of their wages on health care. Congress passed these huge corporate tax cuts supposedly so that companies like AT&T would create jobs and raise wages."

Newly-elected Michigan Democratic Congresswomen Elissa Slotkin, Haley Stevens, and Rashida Tlaib appeared in videos expressing their appreciation for CWA members who took the time to speak out about the need to hold AT&T accountable. Slotkin and Stevens won elections to replace Republican members of Congress who had enthusiastically supported the corporate tax cut bill.