CWA, AT&T Strike Deal for DirecTV Workers

WASHINGTON — The Communications Workers of America has tentatively struck a new contract with AT&T covering 500 DirecTV service center employees.

The contract, which still needs to be ratified by members, covers workers in Alabama, California, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota and Tennessee.

The CWA represents a total of 150,000 AT&T workers. With the new contract, that includes 2,000 DirecTV workers.

“Our objective in bargaining is to reach fair agreements that will allow us to provide solid union-represented careers with excellent wages and benefits, and we believe this agreement does that,” AT&T said in a statement.

“In 2015 and 2016, we successfully reached, and our union-represented employees ratified, 25 different labor agreements covering over 102,000 employees across the country. That includes 15 different labor agreements in 2016 collectively covering nearly 61,000 employees. The 2016 agreements include nine agreements covering nearly 7,300 former DirecTV employees.”

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.