AT&T agrees to raise wages, give parental leave, and restrict call center cameras
If you are one of the 13,000 AT&T employees covered by the wage increase agreement with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union, you are in luck as the carrier has agreed to raise your paycheck by at least 15%.
The CWA agreement covers both front office AT&T employees like customer reps or call center support staff, but also back office ones like network technicians. Those 13,000 workers are spread throughout AT&T stores in 36 states in the Northeast, Midwest, and West, as well as the District of Columbia.
While AT&T's CEO went on record not long ago to express his displeasure with the speed of wage increases, the move is inevitable if the carrier wants to keep its employees happy and in light of the rampant inflation that eats into real wages.
Besides the 15% bump in base pay, the CWA agreement includes a clause for inflation adjustments which should bring another decent chunk of change for Ma Bell's wage workers. According to the CWA President Chris Shelton:
These workers provided essential services during the pandemic, putting themselves at risk to enable us to stay connected to one another. They stayed united during contract negotiations and won an agreement that recognizes the importance of the work they do and shows what working people can achieve when they join together and demand respect.
Besides the pay increases, AT&T workers got to celebrate Martin Luther King's Day as an official holiday, as well as two weeks paid parental leave as part of a new healthcare package. The call center workers nabbed an important privacy win by limiting web camera usage requirements when working from home, too.
AT&T previously had commented for Fierce Wireless that it already pays $26 on average to its Mobility division workers that are employed full time and that it is the only nationwide carrier whose wage employees are unionized.
The raises and adjustments will depend on the position and time with the company, of course, while carriers already started to raise their prices to reflect the inevitable inflation-induced increase in labor costs.
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