AT&T; May Promote Early Retirement
American Telephone & Telegraph and unions representing more than 135,000 of its employees announced a tentative agreement Tuesday on improved pension benefits designed to encourage more workers to retire early and reduce the need for layoffs.
The agreement, if ratified by members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, would be the first early retirement incentive program aimed at AT&T;’s non-management employees.
Nonetheless, the new plan was called “a very mixed blessing” by CWA President Morton Bahr. He criticized AT&T; and “every major employer in this nation” for not working harder to provide continuing employment and more meaningful jobs.
The plan would increase the number of workers eligible to retire by adding three years to their age and job tenure as of May 1. That will nearly double the number of workers eligible to draw a pension, to 34,000 from 18,000, said AT&T; spokeswoman Linda McDougall. For workers in jobs that the company deems as surplus, AT&T; subsidiaries would be authorized to add five years to ages and seniority and also increase monthly pension payments by 15%.
Joe Penna, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, estimated that 8,000 to 12,000 workers would choose early retirement.
AT&T; said 39% of management-level employees eligible under a similar incentive plan last year chose to retire early--12,535 of 32,121 managers eligible. So if the rank-and-file respond similarly, AT&T; would more than meet its announced goal of trimming 9,000 jobs this year in a continuing effort to cut costs and realign staff in the increasingly competitive but less labor-intensive telecommunications industry.
AT&T; said that while that program cost $163 million in benefits it trimmed payroll by $450 million a year.
But CWA President Bahr called on AT&T; and other major employers to work harder at developing significant new jobs rather than issuing early pension checks.
“These corporations should be looking at ways of creating good jobs with decent wages and benefits, not ways of transitioning employees off the payroll,” he said in a statement. Bahr acknowledged, however, that the tentative agreement would meet “our goal . . . to do something extra to help ease the unrelenting pain of those workers who face AT&T;’s continual downsizing.”
As AT&T; shareholders gather for the company’s 105th annual meeting this morning at the Los Angeles Convention Center, union leaders intend to demonstrate their concern for, in Bahr’s words, “job preservation, job creation and job improvement.” They organized a rally outside the center Tuesday evening for local AT&T; employees attending the company’s traditional “family night” of exhibits, food, music and a talk by AT&T; Chairman Robert E. Allen.
