[AT&T] has access to well over half of U.S. homes, about 60 million. It has unregulated, exclusive access and no one else can use their systems. |
[In addition, wage increases of between 3 percent and 4 percent have largely been agreed upon, though agreement on those issues could change in response to concessions on other concerns.] We have seen some positive movement on some of the issues, but this is a situation with a lot of moving parts, ... Those issues could change as we move to other issues. |
Anybody in the industry ... in the country ... has to be concerned about the power that it puts in AT&T's hands, |
Anybody in the industry ... in the country ... has to be concerned about the power that it puts in AT&T's hands. |
As far as I know, that's a suit against her, and we have nothing to do with that. |
As this strike goes into the second week, the objective of this is for us to be able to be the most effective competitor in the wireless sector, |
But getting our accurate position out there on this issue is something we've had to work hard to achieve, ... A sizeable amount of inaccurate, or even blatantly biased, information makes its way to the web, and the more sensational stories - true or not - tend to get amplified by repetition. |
I believe both unions and certainly management bargainers are committed to resolving the issues and getting a contract, ... But it remains impossible to predict when a settlement will actually be reached. |
I honestly believe we are in a situation where this could come together in a matter of hours if people agree that it's time to do that, but we haven't been able to get that kind of an agreement from the unions. Frankly, we think we're there. Obviously there's not complete agreement on this. |
I think all of us who work underground try our best not to hit anybody. |
I'm sure there have been cases of that and I'm sure it will get worse tomorrow as normal business volumes build up. |
Intense negotiations have continued late last evening, then resumed again at 9:30 a.m., ... The current talks are intense. |
It's not competition yet, but . . . it may turn out to be yet another way in which people are competing with us. |
It's our fervent hope that we will be able to negotiate that contract and get it over as quickly as possible. We continue to believe that we've made progress and that the end of this negotiation process continues to be within reach. We believe we can reach an agreement quickly and get workers back on the job. We want this strike to be over. |
Now the union has raised the issue of workplace stress, and we're working on a solution to that too, ... The work done in call centers we all agree is tough and the people that do this work face a hard job. The question is, how can we address issue of job stress and still provide customers with the service they want and that they deserve? |