AT&T wireline workers vote to give union power to call strike

AT&T Inc. wire-line workers voted today to give one of their unions the power to call a strike at the company's biggest business after a month of negotiations failed to produce a new contract.

Eighty-eight percent of unionized wire-line workers voted to allow the Communications Workers of America to authorize a strike after most of the contracts expire on April 4, union spokeswoman Candice Johnson said. Negotiations began on Feb. 24.

The union wants to protect benefits, such as health care, and the ability for employees in the declining wire-line business to move into new jobs at AT&T as they are created, Johnson said. AT&T's wire-line business, which competes with cable providers for home-phone users, generated more than half of the company's sales last year. A strike would affect about 90,000 employees, she said.

"AT&T is financially very successful, even in this economic downturn," Johnson said in an interview. "This is a company that is doing well and should be leading to help turn this economy around."

Strike authorization votes are common and don't always lead to a strike, Johnson said. They are typically taken a few weeks before contracts expire as a sign of employee support, she said.

The contract covering about 35,000 employees in AT&T's southeast division doesn't expire until Aug. 6.

AT&T spent $5.5 billion last year on health care for more than 1.2 million employees, dependents and retirees, according to the Dallas-based company's Web site. Wire-line workers pay less for medical treatment than some employees on the more profitable wireless side as well as Internet workers and management, company spokesman Walt Sharp said.

"We're simply looking for a more cost-competitive structure in those health-care plans that fosters wise behavior and wise choices," Sharp said in an interview.

Non-management wire-line employees pay about 8.3 percent of their health-care costs, according to AT&T's Web site. That compares with those in its Internet products division, who pay a quarter of their costs, and managers who pay about a third.

AT&T's wire-line sales declined 3.3 percent last quarter from a year earlier. The company has lost almost 19 million lines since the first quarter of 2005 as customers cut their home-phone service and replace them with digital phones offered by cable companies and mobile phones, AT&T said on its Web site. The company said in December it would eliminate 12,000 jobs.