Audio of Mobility Town Hall

Moderator: Good evening and thank you for joining our call tonight to discuss the tentative agreement your CWA Orange contract bargaining committee has reached with AT&T Mobility. This contract provides wage increases over the life of the contract that are industry best, raising the bar not just for CWA members but for all workers in the wireless industry, increased security for call center members and retail workers, and improved healthcare provisions to ensure you and your family can afford the care you need. This contract represents over 9,000 members in CWA locals from across the Orange footprint, which covers 36 states and the District of Columbia in CWA Districts 1, 2-13, 4, 7, and 9. I am Pat Telesco, bargaining co-chair. Unfortunately, due to an unexpected last-minute issue that came up, Vice President Dennis Trainer is unable to join us this evening. But on tonight’s call, you will be hearing from me and District 4 staff representative Jane Phillips, co-chair, and we have the members of your bargaining committee, and we will review the specifics of the contract, followed by a questions and answers session after that. If you have a question for us, please press star three at any time to be put into the questions queue. If you are disconnected from the call, you can reconnect by dialing 855-808-5159. I’m going to repeat that, if you are disconnected from our call, you can reconnect by dialing 855-808-5159. Although Dennis isn’t here, he wanted everyone to know a few things. He wanted us to thank the bargaining committee for their dedication and hard work they put into getting this agreement. Also, a big thank you to the mobilizing committee members who planned and executed activities big and small over the last four months that you all participated in. Thank you for your participation in activism, because whether you attended a rally, wore red, used a CWA background on your virtual meetings, or wore a sticker or a pin, you sent a message to AT&T that you were standing together in solidarity to fight for a good contract and you contributed in a big way to achieving this tentative agreement. We don’t win these contract improvements at the bargaining table. We win good contracts when the members mobilize and show the company that they stand strong together. And you did this. At this time, I would like to introduce my bargaining co-chair, staff representative Jane Phillips from District 4.

Jane Phillips: Thank you, Pat, and good evening, sisters and brothers. I want to say thank you for all of your work that you did in order to help get us to a fair agreement. With your mobilization efforts, it helped move us forward through the tough days that we faced at the table. Thank you for your support, your bargaining team appreciates all that you do. I would like to now turn it over to our national mobilization coordinator that led our mobilization team, Anita Shucko.

Anita Shucko: Thanks, Jane. Good evening, everyone. My name is Anita Shucko and for the last couple of months, I have had the privilege and honor of working with you all in moving our mobilization efforts on the shop floor. The unity of our membership is the most important source of our power we have as a union, and contract mobilization is based on the truth that strong contracts are won in the workplace, not just at the bargaining table. Through every mobilization that we did in our workplaces, we did it standing side-by-side with each other and our bargaining committee. So to every mobilizer and member, this contract was achieved by every single one of you, whether you wore your union swag every day to work, had your backgrounds up, told your manager in every interaction that you want a strong contract and you will do what it takes to get the strong contract we all deserve. You spoke one-on-one with co-workers about why we’re mobilizing and asked them to stand together, you held informational pickets, met with elected officials, flyered March Madness games, and at the AT&T block party in Indianapolis, and every single other mobilizations that you did in every one of our workplaces achieved this contract. You took any fear, complacency, hopelessness, and frustration and turned it into collective action, unity, hope, and you built the power to win collectively with your co-workers. Because of your fight and commitment, we didn’t just win a contract, we systematically improved our workplaces for the better. That’s transformational. So here’s to every single one of you for stepping up and doing what needs to get done when it needs to get done. Your fight and commitment made this contract possible. Sending much love and solidarity to all of you and with that I’m going to pass it back to Pat Telesco.

Pat Telesco: Thanks, Anita. Okay, I would like to just take this time to completely review the tentative agreement summary. Many of you have seen this document—if you haven’t, it is available your locals have it along with the complete TA and all the wage tables for all the titles. To start with, I want to tell you the bargaining committee worked very hard on this and unanimously recommends a yes vote on this TA. The CWA Orange mobility bargaining committee reached a tentative agreement that if ratified by May 22nd, the wage increases will be retroactive to February 14th, 2026, our original expiration date, and they will remain in effect until February 15th, 2030. In addition, if ratified by May 22nd, a bonus of $1,000 will be paid out. The combined four-year wage increases will result in a compounded 15.6% base wage increase at the end of the contract. This is not including the sales titles that received breakouts. This is what everybody is getting: the 5% retroactive this year, 3 and a quarter percent February of 2027, 3 and a quarter percent February of 2028, 3 and a quarter percent February of 2029. There is not a COLA in this contract. Why didn’t we get a cost-of-living increase? We put as much as we could into the wages immediately and the government reports that these COLAs are based on, these formulas, are indicating that these general wage increases are enough to cover the inflation. And I will remind us all that in the last two years of the agreement, the 2022 agreement, the third year produced a very small COLA addition to the GWI and in the fourth year, nothing. So, the employees who are currently over the top step of their wage table will remain pay protected. This is important: there’s many employees who for whatever reason came into their job and ended up pay protected on the wage schedules, so those folks will receive the negotiated general wage increase in a lump sum annually. One of the questions I heard often was is this going to be taxed as wages or a bonus payment, and it is considered wages. In addition to this money, there is a breakout raise for the titles that are at risk of losing incentive money, at-risk money. What are these titles? There’s a breakout raise for the Premier Service Consultant—this includes the PSC work from home and the PSC hybrid—and for the Business Premier Service Consultant, for the Retail Sales Consultants, and for the Senior In-Home Experts to get an additional 2% to help compensate for the loss of incentives and commissions due to past policy changes with the company sales policies but also possible changes in the future. The employees in these titles will move step-to-step into their new table and the additional 2% will be added with the GWI and will also be retroactive. So what else do we have in here? Well, let’s see, we have our severance pay increased. Those familiar with the contract know that the current severance payment, if you are surplussed, was capped at 18,000. The severance payment cap has been increased to 21,000. Regarding differentials, on-call duty pay for network—the daily rate for on-call pay is increasing six dollars per day, it is going from 42 dollars to 48 dollars per day for on-call duty. There’s also an increase in the call center multilingual differential which is increased to 8 dollars from 6 dollars daily, not to exceed 40 dollars weekly. Now, I see questions in there about retail multilingual and I will tell you that we had that on the table until the very last minute in this bargaining and the company could not be moved on that item and this is all part of the 2% raise for the RSCs to help account for some of that, in addition to the sales. The work from home monthly internet stipend is increasing from 55 dollars a month to 65 dollars a month. There is no longer a waiting period for sick days for employees who have more than one year service. There was a waiting period if you were under five years, and while I realize that there are some states with strong sick and safe laws and leaves in this contract who are already covered by that and AT&T does honor the sick and safe laws in all the states and municipalities, but there are many areas where we have members who did not have the protection at the state level for that so they will certainly benefit from no longer having to do a waiting day before getting paid for being sick. We have a letter of agreement in the contract that everyone who is a retail rep at least is familiar with, and this is the floor for your commissions. We have increased the minimum annual commission for RSCs from 10,250 to 12,000. What does this mean? This means that the company has the ability to change, make changes to the compensation plan. They had a minimum in there of 10,250 and now if they make changes, they must design it so that at 100% to target you make the 12,000. This does not mean that the retail compensation plan is being lowered. The plan that came out in January of 2026 is currently still the plan. With LOA 18, it’s a similar letter that covers our in-home experts, our Senior In-Home Experts. The floor for the Senior In-Home Experts was in the contract as 15,000 and now it is 16,000. But again, your commission plan is targeted to pay more than that currently. The plan that was put into effect in January is still there, so your commission plan is not being lowered. This is the floor being increased. I also want to point out that while there is no increase in tuition reimbursement, the company has removed the annual cap. You were limited to I think 8,000 a year for being able to take coursework. And the lifetime cap is still 25,000 for undergrad and 35,000 for grad programs, but having the cap removed enables people to take on a bigger course load and finish their degree more quickly. The committee is especially happy about a new letter of agreement stating that retail sales consultants are not required to sell outside of the retail store or to attend sales events or make cold calls to potential customers. We know that this was a big issue in the surveys, this was also a big issue over the past three or four months as people were talking about their managers telling them to take training for special events and things, and this letter makes it clear that while RSCs may volunteer for these assignments, your manager cannot require it. The other exciting new item in the contract is network for the network firstnet trial. I think those of you are familiar with FirstNet and the company made a move to try to get people to volunteer and to sign up over the past couple of years with mixed results. Managers were not managing correctly. We now have this trial where technicians will be offered—every technician—to take to volunteer to be trained completely and technicians will be offered a first right of refusal for planned, urgent, and emergency FirstNet dispatches. What the committee realized was as this subcommittee dug into this—and I appreciate all the work that they put into this—they realized that managers and non-bargained-for people were getting the planned work and our FirstNet trained technicians were getting the 3:00 AM calls. So, the network FirstNet trial where every technician can volunteer to be trained will start as soon as possible after ratification. And there is also a consumer call center scheduling trial to more equally distribute weekend work. We heard from the surveys and from you that you’re tired of working every Saturday. Senior people shouldn’t have to work Saturdays or Sundays or pick schedules that include weekend just to get the hours that they prefer working. This trial will begin within 30 days of ratification and within 30 days of them following results, we should see improvements. The trial will run in all the MUs in the brick and mortar, hybrid, and work from home groups. Regarding job security, many of you are familiar with the call share agreement. The company in our contract currently has to keep the call share at at least 11%. This agreement here increases the call percentage to 12% this year, next year, and in 2028 and to 13% in 2029. Why is this important? It’s important because if the call percentages drop below the agreed-upon levels, there will be no involuntary surpluses declared unless there is an extraordinary drop in total call volume or other adverse economic reasons for the decline. So, we’ve improved our call share, we’ve renewed the employment security commitment which applies to all titles, and there is in addition there is a letter of agreement that if a consumer brick and mortar center closes before June 1st of 2028, the guaranteed job will be a PSC work from home job. Regarding healthcare, the healthcare keeps the costs down, it keeps the employee share under 29% in all options. One thing that we’re excited about is the company fought hard to get us to have a deductible on prescriptions with Option 1. You have Option 1 and Option 2 and Option 1 has two parts, two options to it, and so does Option 2. So, there really are four options here. With the Option 1 plans, we’ve maintained no deductible on prescriptions which I said the company was pushing hard to get the prescriptions integrated which would have left you if you purchased Option 1 it would have left you not getting your drugs covered until you’ve met the deductible. The groundbreaking information that we have is the health savings account in Option 2, because it not only has an option for a match, it also comes with a company contribution. What do I mean by that? Well, for those who can afford it and choose Option 2, which is the high deductible plan, the company match of 1,000 individual and 2,000 family is available if you make quarterly contributions. You get the match from the company. But some of the folks in this contract who are earning under 60,000 as of 2026 might not be able to put in 500 dollars a quarter for a family or 250 a quarter for an individual. So, for those earning under 60,000—and I say as of 2026 because the raises in this contract will not take you out of this category if you are there now—what’ll happen is you’ll be able to go into open enrollment and either opt into the contribution or opt into the match if you are in Option 2, in an Option 2 plan. There are no changes to the pension or the 401(k). In addition, the company has added a well-being incentive program where employees will be eligible to earn well-being incentives for participating in AT&T-sponsored well-being initiatives and you get access to a well-being choice credit program and you earn credits to reimburse you for eligible well-being expenses. And the company mentioned things like, you know, exercise equipment, a Peloton, there’s various things that you’ll be able to do to stay in the wellness program. Okay, so employees have the monthly premiums listed here and they have not they’re not higher than the 29%, obviously they’re a little higher than they were in the last contract because healthcare costs have gone up and our cost share percentage of it is staying the same. The working spouse partner monthly contribution will be 135 for 2027 and 2028 and 145 in 2029 and 2030. What does this mean? The working spouse contribution only applies to those employees who put their partner or spouse on the healthcare here if the partner or spouse has other healthcare at their employer that they are denied to take. So, if your spouse or partner is not employed, if they’re retired, or if they do not have healthcare at their employer, then you do not pay that monthly contribution. There was also the same tobacco use contribution added monthly, 75 dollars in all years, and as always, it is waived for employees who participate in the tobacco cessation program which can be done annually. You just opt into that during open enrollment. Without getting into details on all the costs, which is impossible, you all pick different things and you know, like I said, the TA is available for viewing as is the summary. I do want to point out that there’s copays still apply with Option 1 on the prescriptions, not coinsurance. The company was pushing the integrated deductible along with a coinsurance, which you never know what percentage you’re paying a cost of, so we were able to maintain the fixed copays and there is still a list of low-cost drugs and generic. Option 2 broad and select has coinsurance not to exceed maximums below for preferred drugs 30% coinsurance, non-preferred 50%, and mail order generic 30%. Dental contributions are staying low, it’s for the individual 12 dollars in 2027, 2028 and 2029, going to 14 in 2030. For the family, 36 dollars in 2027, 2028 and 2029, 40 dollars in 2030. There’s no other changes to the dental program. And vision contributions for an individual, 4 dollars in 2027, 5 in 2028 and 2029, and 6 dollars in 2030. Individual plus one and family, 8 dollars in 2027, 10 dollars in 2028 and 2029, and 18 dollars in 2030. And that is the healthcare, and I think that is everything I was hoping to cover for you and we can go to our questions, I guess now.

Will: Hi, this is Will with CWA headquarters. I’m going to bring on Eileen Rosinto. Eileen, you’re live on the call.

Eileen Rosinto: Hello?

Will: Yes, go ahead.

Eileen Rosinto: Yeah, my question is about the on-call pay. Because before when we got called during our on-call day, we could charge an hour or something for the call even though we don’t dispatch for safety reason or something like that. But I think they changed it now to a call-in call-out code on our time. So if we spend only 15 minutes on the ticket and then we don’t dispatch, so they’re just going to pay us they said two hours, but they only pay us for the time that we worked, for example, it’s like 15 minutes and then the rest is going to be an hour 45 that’s going to be regular time and they only pay us 15 minutes for the time and a half one. So, and those two hours is like consumable for the whole day. So if we got called again and then we don’t dispatch again, it’s just going to accumulate the time on those two hours.

Pat Telesco: Nothing has changed in the contract. Section five of Article 19 still says network employees who are called to work will be paid a call-out payment equal to two hours of their basic wage for any work performed single incident, so you should be getting a minimum of two hours even if it took 15 minutes. All we did was increase the daily on-call pay which is going from 42 dollars to 48 dollars.

Will: Is there another question? It looks like we have Justin on.

Justin: Hi, yes, thank you. Just a quick question. Is you said that they can change their options for the healthcare in the open enrollment obviously, but does reaching of the contract count as a life event so would that be an would they be able to change it then or do they have to wait until later in the year when the actual open enrollment happens?

Pat Telesco: This healthcare that’s being negotiated now is for 2027, so this will be part of the fall open enrollment. Does that answer your question? Ashley is going to be live in just one moment please. Ashley, you are live from 4603.

Ashley: Hi, bear with me because I don’t know if I’m explaining this right, but basically my question was if you could go into more detail about if we’ve reached our step. So like the only way I’d know how to break this down is I know I was getting a raise like every six months until just recently it cut off at my I guess my final step. I think I heard you guys say we would get like a lump sum payment instead of it being like every six months or something like that like you normally is.

Pat Telesco: No, thank you for the question, I’m sure a lot of folks are confused about that. So Ashley, once you reach the max step, you get your raises in your paycheck. When I refer to people who are above the max step, and I see you’re a PSC, right? So you’re also getting the 2% breakout. But when you’re above the max step, what I mean is for example some in-home experts who were previously non-bargained and came in and they had pay levels that were all over the place and some of them were caught in the pay table and some were over the pay table. Those are the folks that will get a lump sum or if you were a surplussed person. If you were surplussed from one title into a lower paid title and you’re pay protected, then your raise will come in a lump sum annually as a percentage of your annual money. I can also think of this applies to we had a bunch of customer service ambassadors from Lumen who joined this contract who came in as pay protected employees. This would apply to you, you would get the general wage increases in a lump sum if you are over the max the new max for the PSC title. Does that answer your question? Ashley, callers are are go off being live once they’ve finished talking. I’m bringing Louise on from 9400 just a moment please. Louise, you should be live on the call. Louise Wesson.

Louise Wesson: Louise? I’m sorry. You said Louise Wesson, my name’s Jacqueline.

Will: Oh, I’m sorry. Did you have a question about the contract bargaining? Go ahead with your question.

Jacqueline: My question is if we vote no on this contract, will we go back to the bargaining table? If it because we have to vote, right?

Pat Telesco: You have to vote, yes. That’s a good question. If the contract this tentative agreement is voted down, sure, we’d have to go back to the table, but we didn’t leave any crumbs on the table. So we are definitely going to need to do something like a serious strike to get anything more. I seriously think that this bargaining committee getting the 5% and the 3 and a quarter, 3 and a quarter, 3 and a quarter, which is over 15.6 over the life of the agreement, and for the sales titles that are getting the additional 2% it’s over 17% increase for the life of the agreement. So yes, obviously if a contract is voted down, the committee has to go back to the table. Do I think that we would get better raises just because the contract got voted down? I don’t. That’s Pat’s opinion.

Will: Next we’re going to be hearing from Claudia. Claudia with a 201 area code, you’re on the line.

Claudia: Yes, good evening. My name is Claudia and I am from 1101 in Paramus and I have a question about the administrative assistant titles. I noticed that we weren’t mentioned on the tentative agreement and my question is how come we are not getting the 2% salary increase as reps, I believe the premier ones. And also we weren’t mentioned for the job security portion and no incentives. That is my question.

Pat Telesco: Yes, sure. As an administrative assistant, you’re definitely getting the 5% raise and the 3 and a quarter for the remaining three years. And for everybody on the call, these wage tables are available to you, they are available in the back of the tentative agreement which your local presidents all have. And the reason that the titles that are in the TA that are mentioned is because those are the sales titles that we got the extra 2% for because those are the sales titles that are at risk of losing incentive money in the call centers because of utilization numbers for 250 calls on the consumer side, for example, they lose money when the company changes the not only the the payouts for the RSCs and the I-checks, but if they tweak a rule in the sales policy that might result in less money. So in order to get some justice for them having the incentives and commissions tweaked constantly, that is why those sales titles got the extra 2%. But everyone in this contract has wage tables in the back of the tentative agreement showing the increases, and administrative assistant is certainly there. And I’m sorry, I wanted to mention the job security, Will. I think I’m trying to remember I think she asked about job security too. The employment security commitment covers everybody, besides special letter I mentioned was due to a special circumstance with consumer brick and mortar call centers. But every employee in this contract is covered by the employee security commitment, which guarantees you a job. It is to anywhere in the country you may have to move, but if you want to stay with AT&T you’ll have that job offer.

Will: All right, next we’re going to be hearing from Teresa. Teresa from 4320 you had a question about medical?

Teresa: Yes, I was wondering what the max out-of-pocket is every year with the insurance.

Pat Telesco: That is a question that would depend on what you chose for an option. I’m flipping through a large document trying to find this for you here. The annual deductibles, you asked what the deductible or the out-of-pocket? The annual deductibles in the Option 1, they’re 1,000 and 2,000, so be 1,000 individual, that’s the deductible. And it runs through 2030, that’s for in-network and when you live in an area that is out-of-network with the you’re looking for the out-of-pocket max. Out-of-pocket maximums. Now again, depending on the option that you choose. Option 1 broad, out-of-pocket max for an individual is 4,700, out-of-pocket max for family 9,400. If you go to the Option 2, it is the higher deductible plan that comes with the health savings account and the out-of-pocket there is 7,500 an individual, 15,000 a family. Option 2 select is the same, 7,500 individual, 15,000 family. Those are the out-of-pocket maximums that you would pay.

Will: Thomas Wilks had a question. Thomas Wilks, you’re live on the call.

Thomas Wilks: Hi, can you hear me?

Pat Telesco: Yes.

Thomas Wilks: Hey, Thomas Wilks, 4320 out of Cleveland in-home expert. Had I had one question and then I formed another question, so if I can ask two questions that’d be amazing. But my first question, I know managers and non-bargained-for employees get six weeks of paternal while us union get two weeks. I know the paternal leave was on like the table to be discussed, I just didn’t know if that was something that got updated to reflect more fairness across the board.

Pat Telesco: Unfortunately, thank you for the question, unfortunately it did not get updated. The parental leave is still two weeks. So we tried very hard to get it to match the 12 weeks that I believe non-management get. We actually tried to get half, and then the company the company’s position on this item is that managers have a completely different benefit package and they pay more for benefits on the whole. I think that is one of the reasons the company wouldn’t want to add any additional money to that, but we fought for it right until the end. It’s still two weeks though.

Thomas Wilks: All right, and then the other question I had was and this might be geared specifically towards the in-home expert side of it, but I know there was rumors or talks about the position moving towards an hourly versus a salary. Is that something that is coming to light or is that just rumors and smoke?

Pat Telesco: It’s obviously it’s got to be rumors because the company and the union don’t bargain whether someone is exempt or non-exempt, and the Department of Labor actually sets the categories for who can be salaried, who should be hourly, who’s exempt from overtime, who’s not. So I suppose the company if they were to redesign your job in some way it could get to that point, but as a salaried employee and an exempt employee, no, that’s not changed and you’re still not you’re not getting overtime but you also have other perks based on being salaried such as not having that limit that some have 10 or 5 days on sick time. When you’re salaried, you’re salaried. But no, the question about it changing, I have no information that it will change anytime soon, so I believe that’s a rumor.

Will: Louise? Louise you will be on live in just a moment please. It’s Sarah, not Louise. I apologize, go ahead please.

Sarah: Hello? Hi. Um, my question is I noticed in the contract and you kind of touched on it briefly is that it’s very geared towards the consumer as far as the brick and mortar’s closing, but what about the business unit? So that wouldn’t transition to a work from home, that would actually be you’d have to relocate?

Pat Telesco: I can’t I don’t want to leave you with the impression that you would have to relocate. A special circumstance arose during bargaining where we became aware that call center closures had happened in other districts and in consumer it looked like we were going to have some issues with that and consumer has available work from home jobs and so we do have a commitment just for the consumer. The business premier service consultant does not have a work from home counterpart, so at this time you do have employment security commitment. It might be available as a work from home job but there is no guarantee unless you’re in a consumer brick and mortar that you would be given a work from home job.

Sarah: But what about other titles aside from the BPSC? Because there are other titles in the consumer I mean in the business unit in Paramus. So what about them? What about us?

Pat Telesco: Everybody is included in the employment security commitment, everybody. And at the time they have a surplus, AT&T opens up as many jobs as possible. The way the employment security commitment works currently is you have two weeks to front-load anybody who’s not surplussed, you get to apply for jobs and go ahead of them, you get priority placement, and then if you don’t find something on your own, the company owes you a guaranteed job. What that will be, we can’t tell you at this time because the commitment is just for a job. It was strictly with the consumer centers that they made the commitment for a work from home job.

Will: Christopher from Connecticut with an 860 area code. Christopher, you’re live on the air.

Christopher: Hey, um yes so I have a question here. So I’m a salesperson at AT&T working from home. My question to you is I know we’re getting the raises because of previous incentives being removed here. Are there any talks of incentives being removed even further here? Like are we losing commission on items, anything like that?

Pat Telesco: Good question. If you’re a PSC, it’s really incentives, it’s not commission. It’s covered under Article 19, which currently as you know says the company can change your incentives, eliminate them, do whatever they want with them at any time. That’s what the contract has said and that’s what it still says. But no, we have no indication that the company is going to lower the incentives. When I referred to past things, I’m referring to and you probably remember they went to in 2025, 250 call a month minimum in order to get incentives. And we felt that was very unfair item. People are penalized for taking vacation time, penalized for taking other time off. The sales titles of retail and I-checks, they have quota relief as a work from home PSC, you don’t have any quota relief because they consider it just an incentive, there’s no guarantee. But no, because you’ve got this extra 2% bonus, that does not mean that the incentives will be cut.

Will: Angela Reddick, you’re being made live.

Angela Reddick: Yes, hello. My question was regarding scheduling. So for me, I’m a premier service consultant work from home, we have not had a new hire class since 2023, so obviously seniority is not moving. You mentioned better scheduling for senior members and I completely understand they’ve put their time in, but is that going to push the rest of us down into worse schedules than we’re already getting?

Pat Telesco: You know, that’s a good question. I think the only thing that we’re looking to do is try to fix it so that everybody doesn’t have to work a weekend. That was clear in the survey and yes, seniority has always been a thing in this contract and it’s been eroded over the last couple of years as the committee and the subcommittee of PSCs that were there working with Jane could see that you had to pick in order to get like the day shift you wanted you had to pick a weekend otherwise you’d be working till 9:00 if you wanted the weekend off. We’re trying to spread it around. Could it possibly mean that the less senior people don’t get the schedules they want? Possibly. But the goal is to just have the company schedule the correct amount of people. And I will say this on this call is that in looking at the numbers, it seemed the company was over-scheduling seriously on weekends. And it may be a factor of they took brick and mortar schedules and had work at home people work more weekends. I couldn’t speak to that when they get into looking at the MUs and like I said, Jane and the committee spent a lot of time looking at it, the goal here is to just have them schedule properly and not put so many reps on on Saturday. The company seems to get half the calls on a Saturday that they get Monday through Friday, so why would you need more than 50% of the people? That was the intent. It’s not set up to try to make it worse for less senior people, but to try to put some fairness into the scheduling so people can plan a life. That’s it.

Will: Charles with a 276 area code. Charles, go ahead.

Charles: Yeah, hey. Kind of piggybacking off of that, my concern is the definition of the word trial. What does that encompass? Like is it going to be oh hey, here’s your one bid, we tried it, it didn’t work, now you’re back on Saturdays. Too bad, so sad. Is there any like what does that mean? Are we going to get extended periods, does there have to be like for instance do certain staffing levels have to be met before they can say that they have to move from it? You see what I’m saying? I just don’t want this to be an oh we tried it and sorry it didn’t work kind of thing.

Pat Telesco: Right. I share your concern. I think that the thing that’s groundbreaking about this is the company has always decided how many people needed to work on any given day, on any given hour and that’s one of their management rights. and then we just make them hand out the per the contract the schedules by seniority. What we’re hoping with this trial, and this is, you know, as you said, a trial is a little worrisome, right? But once implemented, this trial will go on. It may involve more than one bidding. We don’t know. The way the wording is, is it says the company will conduct a trial relating to consumer call center scheduling in the mobility sales and service centers. The trial will focus on redistribution of weekend work with the brick and mortar, hybrid, and virtual call center schedules so that the call center workers that participate in the trial and we’ll look at the geographic footprint, we’ll look at seniority lists, number of slots available in each shift or in the trial, and then the company and the union will meet to discuss the expectations of the trial within 30 days following ratification. This trial will be in effect for no less than six months and during the trial there will be bidding. So it is literally trying it to see if we can work as partners with the company with this committee to come up with better scheduling options. But you’re right, there’s no guarantee. But we have to try.

Will: Rudy from 4100. Rudy, you’re on the call.

Rudy: Hey, how you doing?

Pat Telesco: Hi.

Rudy: Yeah, my question’s about the pension. I’m 54 I’m getting close to retirement. How come we’re not doing anything with the pension? And also every time we lose a position in the switches, they don’t backfill. They’ve been running switches with one guy and they got him doing 7 by 24 on-call and stuff like that. And then when he takes vacation they got us covering for him as well from Detroit to Grand Rapids. And then my last question wait, hold on, this my last last question. Profit share. How come we don’t go after profit share like the big three do?

Pat Telesco: Oh, I love that profit sharing question. I stopped bargaining profit sharing contracts years ago because the company controls the complete payout of that. The company we I’ve seen so many profit sharing things in there we did not discuss profit sharing, it was not in the surveys, but profit sharing is overrated because the company controls every single part of whatever formula you negotiate for profit sharing. And I think the peanuts that we were getting in previous old core AT&T contracts with profit sharing certainly wasn’t worth taking money out of the pie that we’re bargaining from. But you also said something about the pension. No, there were no different no changes to the pension plan. This contract has got a cash balance pension and there’s been no change to the 401(k) either. The company is still matching up to 80% on the 401(k). Regarding your question on the switch techs, I do want you to know that the company pushed hard to combine your title with field techs, wireless technician. They wanted you out of there, they wanted you out in the field and the committee fought and the company took that off the table. But do I think they’ll be staffing up the switches? I don’t. I don’t think that. And I think that the technology is changing so much that I can’t say that there’d be any more hiring. We don’t know that we won’t though. So I just wanted you to know that you were protected from being pushed into a wireless tech job.

Will: We have a call from Gwendolyn Jones. Gwendolyn Jones, you’re live.

Gwendolyn Jones: Thank you. I had a couple questions. Um, one being um about observe. Um, right now we have like the introduction of AI into our call flow and pretty much being observed on every call and um is there anything the contract about that? Um, two, the question my second question is in regards to the amount of the medical increase in alignment with the um wage increase and how much are we really getting um with those two um factors involved. And um the other question I had was in regards to call centers closing and I think they might have touched on it before but um it was just in regards to call centers closing and um are we going to be offered a work from home position if that’s the case? Paramus. Thanks.

Pat Telesco: Okay, number one, how many call observations can the company do? The company, as you know, records the calls, all of them. Every single one of them. We have LOA 12 that’s been in the contract for a while now and we they can do a maximum of eight randomly selected calls per representative per month for evaluative purposes. They can pull other calls and say, you know, maybe you should have said this or maybe you should have said that. And then certainly if other people that do observations or somebody listens to a call and hears someone say something off-color to a customer or hang up on a customer or put a customer on hold and walk away for 15 minutes, those are calls they’re going to be talking to you about, but we need to enforce LOA 12, quality observations. It covers both call centers and retail stores and literally it’s a maximum of eight recorded calls. When they’re done going over up to eight calls, they can’t use any of the other calls for performance. It already says that in the agreement. It’s an alternate when they go over it. Management selects a call to listen to, the employee selects a call, it’s supposed to be completely random and that’s how that works. Your other question was about healthcare and how much is the increase? I think I recall that our researchers and actuaries have calculated that 0.5 of the increase may be going to healthcare. And you lastly asked a question I think you said it was about consumer call centers and consumer call centers have a letter in there if you’re in a brick and mortar consumer call center and it closes within the next two years before June of 2028, you will get a guaranteed work from home job. But all titles, and I keep wanting to repeat this, have the employment security commitment. You have the option of taking a severance, but the company owes everybody a guaranteed job. What that will be, we can’t tell you at this time because the commitment is just for a job. It was strictly with the consumer centers that they made the commitment for a work from home job.

Will: Thank you, Pat. This is Will again. We’re going to have Gavin come on the line and just a reminder we have just about five more minutes left on our call. Gavin Newton, you’re on the line.

Gavin Newton: Hello, um I’m Gavin Newton, retail sales consultant for local 4900. Um, some of my members had questions about um the family leave time that the company is starting to give the managers. Um, so it’s kind of like kind of piggybacks off the maternity paternity leave question a little bit, but again there’s more short care or short-term time that we’re not penalized for with the point system.

Pat Telesco: Yes, um the maternity the managers do have a new family care leave that came out and we did discuss that and that was one of our demands for a very long time. Um, we did not achieve that demand and so no, we don’t get the same family leave that the non-bargained get at this point.

Will: Sarah from 9400, Sarah not Louise, I apologize, go ahead please.

Sarah: Hello? Hi. Um, my question is I noticed in the contract and you kind of touched on it briefly is that it’s very geared towards the consumer as far as the brick and mortar’s closing, but what about the business unit? So that wouldn’t transition to a work from home, that would actually be you’d have to relocate?

Pat Telesco: I can’t I don’t want to leave you with the impression that you would have to relocate. A special circumstance arose during bargaining where we became aware that call center closures had happened in other districts and in consumer it looked like we were going to have some issues with that and consumer has available work from home jobs and so we do have a commitment just for the consumer. The business premier service consultant does not have a work from home counterpart, so at this time you do have employment security commitment. It might be available as a work from home job but there is no guarantee unless you’re in a consumer brick and mortar that you would be given a work from home job.

Sarah: But what about other titles aside from the BPSC? Because there are other titles in the consumer I mean in the business unit in Paramus. So what about them? What about us?

Pat Telesco: Everybody is included in the employment security commitment, everybody. And at the time they have a surplus, AT&T opens up as many jobs as possible. The way the employment security commitment works currently is you have two weeks to front-load anybody who’s not surplussed, you get to apply for jobs and go ahead of them, you get priority placement, and then if you don’t find something on your own, the company owes you a guaranteed job. What that will be, we can’t tell you at this time because the commitment is just for a job. It was strictly with the consumer centers that they made the commitment for a work from home job.

Sarah: But what about other titles aside from the BPSC? Because there are other titles in the business unit in Paramus. So what about them? What about us?

Pat Telesco: Everybody is included in the employment security commitment, everybody. And at the time they have a surplus, AT&T opens up as many jobs as possible. The way the employment security commitment works currently is you have two weeks to front-load anybody who’s not surplussed, you get to apply for jobs and go ahead of them, you get priority placement, and then if you don’t find something on your own, the company owes you a guaranteed job. What that will be, we can’t tell you at this time because the commitment is just for a job. It was strictly with the consumer centers that they made the commitment for a work from home job.

Will: Aaron from Ohio you’re live on the call.

Aaron: Hello, my name is Aaron. My question was was there any consideration with bargaining for a lower time for the chargeback period? Because it used to be four months and now it’s six months. And that’s really frustrating. Um, forget the other question I had. Go ahead with that.

Pat Telesco: Yes, it’s we spent a long time prior to saying the that we, you know, we need more money and a breakout for this title. We tried very hard to take some control of the compensation plan and the chargebacks, I think I’ve been working with this group for 25 years, I believe originally they were 30 days then they went to 90 days and now it’s 180. And the company was adamant that they needed the 180 so we were not successful in reducing the chargebacks although we tried very hard. And I think your other question if I’m reading the right thing here is regarding the LOA 16 and the 12,000 dollar floor. So, I believe your targeted amount right now is about 15,000 a year, but the company in refusing to bargain the commissions over the years had this letter in there, it’s been in there since the first contract and the amount that they guarantee they will never go below was increased from 10,250 to 12,000. Now, that does not mean that the your opportunity for earnings are going down. They did put a compensation plan in place January 1st of this year, that compensation plan is still in place. And when they do go to change the compensation plan, LOA 4 in our contract currently requires them to come to the commissions committee, the compensation committee. It’s a national committee, every district has someone on the committee, so we’ve not been noticed of any plans and there’s there’s nothing that we have to say that commissions are going to change at this point. The the important part is raising the floor so they cannot lower it below that 12,000.

Will: Pat, this is Will again. We’re going to have Gavin come on the line and just a reminder we have just about five more minutes left on our call. Gavin Newton, you’re on the line.

Gavin: Hello, um I’m Gavin Newton, retail sales consultant for local 4900. Um, some of my members had questions about the family leave time that the company is starting to give the managers. Um, so it’s kind of like kind of piggybacks off the maternity paternity leave question a little bit, but again there’s more short care or short-term time that we’re not penalized for with the point system.

Pat Telesco: Yes, um the maternity the managers do have a new family care leave that came out and we did discuss that and that was one of our demands for a very long time. Um, we did not achieve that demand and so no, we don’t get the same family leave that the non-bargained get at this point.

Will: Pat, this is Will. That’s all the time for questions that we have. Did you have some closing remarks?

Pat Telesco: I don’t have any closing remarks. I just want to say this: please vote. Voting is going on right now and we must have this ratified by Friday. Actually, I need the voting done for the locals by Thursday, May 21st, so that votes can be tallied, called into the districts, and reported to me by the middle of the day on Friday, May 22nd. And as soon as we have an announcement of whether the contracts been ratified, we will share it with all of you. Thank you very much for taking the time to call in and I really appreciate it that you took time to join us. We’re always available to answer questions, please send questions up through your mobilizers and your local coordinators and your locals, your local officers if you have anything else, and I’m sorry that we weren’t able to take everybody’s questions tonight.