I’ve been doing an internship at AT&T at&t Research for the last few weeks. It’s always fun to see how industrial research works, in particular the idiosyncrasies involved with working as part of a giant corporation.
As an employee of at&t Research, I am technically considered one of at&t’s management employee (finally I get some well deserved recognition). Unfortunately, at at&t, this essentially means that I am not part of the union.
Normally my management status would have no impact, but this spring at&t’s unionized employees are up to renew their contract, and there is the chance of a strike. A strike at at&t would be a big deal — they are responsible for more than just a cell phone company. They run a large part of the networks that handle both telephone calls and the internet backbone, plus they provide TV service.
Fortunately, there is no reason to worry, because at&t’s managers (aka scabs) are being trained to take over all of those jobs in case of a strike. So if a strike occurs, you could have a computer science PhD digging ditches for the cable going to your house. While that would probably just be a minor inconvenience (we aren’t known for our hole digging prowess), it’s a little scary to put the control of nationwide networks in the hands of these folks who “in theory” know how they should all work. at&t’s goal is clearly to show the union that the managers are a credible threat, but it seems to me that the threat is really in the amount of damage they would do if they were actually let loose on that infrastructure.
I am only at at&t until December, and the potential strike is not until next spring, but apparently that is not sufficient excuse to get myself out of “strike duty”, and I was assigned a training session to learn how to become an air pressure technician at a center in Texas in case the worst should happen. Fortunately, I’ve managed to weasel my way out of the assignment, so I will not be forced to learn a practical skill…. phew! Less lucky are the rest of the research employees here who get to spend many hours completing the training sessions for their new jobs, while being informed that their own jobs aren’t actually important for the company.
As you consider how much money at&t must be wasting by running training courses and sending people and supplies around for this charade, I leave you to gaze upon the ten pound stack of documents I received when I started my internship, most of them detailing the benefits plans which I am not eligible for.
Ironically, if they put all that money they are using for training toward something the union workers want/need, it would probably be a better use of it.
yeah… it’s pretty ridiculous
First of all, managers are not the scabs. Scabs are union employees crossing their own picket lines to work anyway. Managers are in training only if a work stoppage occurs, not that their jobs are not important. Union employees perform a large part of AT&T’s daily duties. And AT&T does not dig ditches to your house. This work is contracted to outside construction companies. There is a huge number of technical and labor intensive jobs that will need to be performed should the contract not be settled in a timely manner. At this time, union employees are still working and negotiations are still on. Thank goodness you were gone in December. You seem to be a lousy employee.
Scab workers do not necessarily need to be union members — anyone who goes to work to replace union workers while they are on strike can be considered a scab. There is no doubt that at&t is training the managers in part to use them as leverage against the union.
That said, the point of my post was to be a humorous view on what is clearly a rather ridiculous situation. If each side did not need to spend so much effort posturing, and instead could just sit down and reasonably discuss their demands, I think the situation could be resolved much more efficiently.
Also, I should make it clear that I’m not really criticizing at&t in particular here — the issues I raise are common across most large corporations, and I had a great time during my job at at&t (and I wasn’t that lousy an employee ;p ). I just find it pretty funny that they wanted to train someone doing a two month long internship in new jersey to become an air pressure technician out in texas, in case a strike occurred four months after his job ended!