Open Letter penned by member of Local 9003

This is the time for us to fight, not after April 7th, and then it’s too late. This is the time for all union brothers and sisters to stand up, and not ever back down, not blink, and not cower in fear of management. We need to fight right now, to keep what we fought so hard for. If you are a non management employee of at&t, you pay union dues, you are the union, at&t is eliminating employees at an alarming rate thru numerous avenues such as, retirement, surplus, and terminations. 

This is the battle for your rights, your medical, your pensions, your union brothers and sisters' and your jobs. Nothing we have as employees right now was gained without sacrifice, at&t did not give the employees what we currently have out of the kindness of their hearts, the union fought for it, you fought for it, all past employees fought hard for what we have right now, and if we don't stand up and fight back, at&t will strip even more away then they did in the last contract. We all enjoy and benefit from the wages that we earn right now. Little league, soccer, dance class, the gym, toys, taking the family on vacation, the roof over our heads, pets, and gifts on birthday, and at Christmas time. We enjoy driving nice cars. We also enjoy cell phones, internet, TV with 300 channels, and the list of luxuries that we, and our families enjoy goes on and on. If we sit back during these negations, and wait to see what’s going to happen, it’s going to be too little to late.

If we don't stand up, speak up, and fight back, garage and office managers will report back to their negotiating team that we are not united, and don't seam to care what they do to us. We are now expected to meet MSOC numbers and do good jobs in 8. Most of us don't want to be here anymore, I love doing this job, as I believe most of you do, but doing it under these working conditions is very stressful, morale killing, and not good for your overall health. Things need to change now; we already have fellow employees so stressed out that they are retiring before they want to, thinking of quitting, and getting hurt on the job by working to fast, just to meet some arbitrary number which is unsafe. We need to work safely first,  and do a quality job second, and by trying to keep your arbitrary MSOC numbers up so you don't get counseled, and or put on a plan safety and quality goes out the window, you wind up getting hurt, and or repeated,  which goes right back to getting counseled and or terminated. 

Almost every job is covered by a maze of rules, regulations, standing orders, and so on, many of them completely unworkable and generally ignored. Workers often violate orders, resort to their own techniques of doing things, and disregard lines of authority simply to meet the goals of the company. There is often an understanding, even by the managers whose job it is to enforce the rules, that these shortcuts must be taken in order to meet targets on time, so first, work safe, second, do a quality job, and third be where you are supposed to  be when you are supposed to  be there.

Instead of just sitting back and counting the days until the contract ends, thinking as long as we keep what we got last time, I am cool with that, make those days count. Get involved, and participate. Come to work 30 minutes early and picket your access gate, work every job by the book. Follow company safety requirements as they are written. Work to rule.

Contributed by Marc Anderson, Service Technician Glendale, CA Local 9003