Workers strike ends a day later

Union says AT&Twill no longer require technicians to work outside their expertise

“We stand together in California and Nevada for good jobs and fair pay.” — Robert Longer, technician, AT&T

One day after they went on strike, thousands of AT&T workers went back to work Thursday.

Bay Area employees were among the 17,000 who went on strike Wednesday, saying the telecommunications company was forcing technicians to work outside their areas of expertise. The union also was protesting the company’s outsourcing and offshoring of jobs.

The Communication Workers of America, which represents the workers, said the union and the company reached an agreement Wednesday night. The union said “the company will no longer require technicians to perform work assignments outside of their expertise

and classification.”

“We honor all of our agreements and the settlement reached clarified some work processes on assignments for a group of technicians,” AT&T spokesman Steven Maviglio said Thursday. “We engaged in discussion with the union to get these employees back to work as soon as possible.”

Call-center workers, including in San Francisco, Fresno and Sacramento, had joined landline workers in the strike, which occurred in California and Nevada. The workers had been without a contract for a year, the union said.

“We stand together in California and Nevada for good jobs and fair pay,” said Robert Longer, an AT&T technician in Sacramento, according to the CWA’s press release Thursday. “We went on strike to demonstrate to the country that we will not do more work for less pay.”

AT&T’s Maviglio said: “We are not proposing to reduce the wages of any employees in these contracts, and remain committed to providing great benefits.”

The company and its more than 21,000 wireless employees are in contract negotiations now. Those workers are under a contract that can be terminated with 72 hours’ notice.