AT&T has announced plans to acquire Lumen’s residential fiber internet business across 11 states in CWA District 7 and Florida. This plan will leave rural communities without reliable, high-speed internet service, stick urban communities with a risky business model, and destroy thousands of good union jobs.
We won’t let AT&T and Lumen push us around and leave our communities behind.
Add your name to the petition urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and state regulators to ensure that AT&T doesn’t leave workers and our communities behind with their purchase of Lumen. The FCC and state regulators have the power to investigate this deal and protect workers and the public interest.
This deal is bad for workers, and AT&T wants to gut our union contracts. CWA represents over 4,000 workers at Lumen. AT&T says they will only offer Lumen workers a small number of technician positions after the sale, and workers will have to negotiate an entirely new union contract, lowering the wages and standards they’ve fought for decades to establish. The remaining workers who stay at Lumen face the elimination of their good union jobs as Lumen exits the residential market in the next several years.
This deal will leave our communities behind. Lumen’s CEO Kate Johnson said this deal would enable Lumen to exit the residential broadband business, which means customers will lose their broadband and landline phone service. Meanwhile, in urban areas, AT&T plans to find a private equity partner to co-invest and move it off AT&T’s balance sheet. This business model could mean work will be done by non-union contractors rather than skilled, union staff. This Frankenstein-style deal serves AT&T’s shareholders at the expense of our communities.
Companies like AT&T and Lumen think they can push us around, but we’re standing up and fighting back. Please take action to stand up to AT&T and Lumen by signing our petition!
In unity,
Susie McAllister
CWA District 7 Vice President
P.S. You can learn more about the proposed AT&T/Lumen deal here: ATTLumenFacts.org
