Union Says AT&T Reneged on Pact From Before Time Warner Deal

(Bloomberg) -- A union at AT&T Inc. is accusing the company of reneging on a labor agreement that helped gain the support of worker groups for last year’s $85 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc.

As part of a deal renewed in 2017, the Communications Workers of America pledged to support expansion efforts by AT&T and the company agreed to terms for allowing employees from acquired firms to join the union, according to a federal lawsuit filed in April in Washington, D.C. But since the Time Warner merger, the two sides are disputing which new workers are covered by the agreement.

Of about 22,000 U.S. employees who previously worked at Time Warner, AT&T claimed the agreement applies to at most 82, a union official wrote in a letter attached to a June court filing. CWA, which already represents about 90,000 AT&T employees, has asked a judge to order arbitration. In May, the company asked that the case be dismissed, saying the company has “the right to determine” which employees are covered by unionization provisions.

“CWA will support expansion efforts by AT&T as long as those efforts are not in conflict with our members’ interests,” union spokeswoman Beth Allen said.

In response to the suit, AT&T said the facts don’t support the case.

“We’re proud to be one of the largest employers of full-time union labor, and the only major U.S. wireless company with a unionized workforce,” the carrier said in an emailed statement Thursday. “We’ve long respected employees’ rights to organize or to choose whether to be represented by a union. The facts don’t support this lawsuit -- we comply with the terms of our agreements and the lawsuit should be dismissed.”

The Time Warner acquisition was completed in June 2018, after a U.S. appeals court rejected claims by the Justice Department that the combination would mean higher prices. Some lawmakers also said it would hurt competition and innovation. But the deal got vocal support from unions.

In 2017, CWA President Chris Shelton said the AT&T expansion was about “maintaining and creating good U.S. jobs and developing new and innovative ways to deliver technology and content.” Shelton later said the merged company “would provide much-needed new competition to companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon, where working people don’t have union representation.”

Who Can Join?

But over the past year, disagreements emerged over which Time Warner workers could join the union.

In a March 2019 letter, which was included in court filings, AT&T labor relations vice president Joe Croci told a CWA official that determining which Time Warner workers were covered by the earlier deal was based on whether the jobs were “substantially similar” to those of existing employees already represented by the union.

The union “vehemently disagrees” with that interpretation, according to a letter in the court documents from CWA organizing director Sandy Rusher, who has since retired. Rusher expressed “extreme disappointment and frustration” that the company was “breaking its neutrality promise to CWA.”

CWA is currently in contract talks with AT&T and has denounced the company for cutting jobs while reaping a windfall from the corporate tax cut backed by President Donald Trump. The union urged lawmakers to investigate how AT&T is spending the tax savings and has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the company violated the law by refusing to provide more information.

The case is Communications Workers of America v. AT&T, 19-cv-01220, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

--With assistance from Andrew Harris.

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Eidelson in Washington at jeidelson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth, Joe Schneider

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