AT&T;, Unions Avert Strike, Agree to Pacts : 3-Year Contracts Feature Child-Care Fund, Family Leave, Profit Sharing
AT&T; and its unions agreed Sunday on three-year contracts providing workers with wage increases, a new profit sharing plan and an innovative package of family benefits, including leaves to care for sick parents and a $5-million child-care fund.
Company and union officials said the scope of the “family issues” benefits was unprecedented in a major corporate contract.
The nationwide agreement came after American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and the unions forged a compromise over health insurance shortly before existing contracts for about 160,000 workers were to expire at midnight Saturday. That development convinced the unions to negotiate past the deadline.
The contracts contain limits on AT&T;’s use of temporary workers, a 12% benefits increase for new pensioners, a 5% increase in payments for existing pensions effective Jan. 1, 1991, and a system to assist workers seeking transfers or looking for work elsewhere in the company when jobs are eliminated.
Must Be Ratified
The unions agreed to amend several job classifications to allow AT&T; to deploy workers at new tasks because of technological advances and other organizational changes. They failed to get AT&T; to reinstate cost-of-living adjustment clauses into the contracts.
Also, AT&T; joined with the unions in forming a committee that will lobby for legislative and policy changes designed to curb soaring health-care costs.
The contracts, the result of the largest single-employer collective bargaining this year, are subject to rank-and-file ratification. They likely will have a significant impact on contract talks this summer with the “baby bells” formed after the 1984 AT&T; breakup.
The unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said the health-care compromise complied with their pledge to expand medical benefits while not allowing AT&T; to pass on health-care costs to union workers. That issue was the major hurdle to a settlement.
The health-plan premiums remain fully paid by the company and the plan retains 100% coverage for most services.
Overnight Talks
The talks continued overnight and Sunday to settle local matters such as seniority and vacation provisions in some AT&T; divisions.
“The members of CWA and IBEW can be proud of this settlement,” CWA President Morton Bahr said. “This proves how successful we can be when we stick together and fight together.” Added IBEW President John Barry: “We intend to make sure that AT&T; does excel.”
Raymond Williams, AT&T;’s vice president for labor relations and top negotiator, called the contract “the most progressive ever negotiated by AT&T.; It recognizes the needs of AT&T;’s changing work force and it will further strengthen AT&T;’s competitive thrust and cost-containment as the company enters the 1990s.”
The national agreement provides operations employees--operators, technicians, clerical and administrative staff--an immediate 4% pay increase, an additional 2.5% in the second year of the contract and 2.25% in the final year.
Manufacturing workers would receive an 8% lump-sum payment after ratification and those in skilled trades would get an additional 50 cents an hour. All manufacturing workers would receive base wage increases of 3.5% in the second year of the contract and 3% in the third.
Average $700 Payments
The profit sharing plan includes a formula that should yield workers 2.5% of company profits payable on March 31 in each contract year. The average payment, based on AT&T;’s 1988 performance, would be $700, the unions said.
The $5-million fund included in the family benefits package will be paid for by AT&T; and jointly administered to support new and existing child-care centers. AT&T; also agreed to establish tax-deferred accounts that employees can use to save up to $5,000 a year for child or elder care.
The parental and elder-care leave provisions would guarantee a worker’s job and seniority and provide medical and dental coverage for up to six months. AT&T; also agreed to pay $2,000 toward the costs of adoption.
Also included in the agreement was a new legal plan for employees and an infusion of $30 million over the life of the contracts to a company-union training and retraining program.
