AT&T swings the ax

I work in the call center as one of these “expendable people” and I could agree with at least everything being said. I remember the first day of training they would tell us how much we are to care for our customers. Consumers are the ones who make the business. So now that they make the billing process so much easier (as they say), to lessen paper costs, charge 1.99 per line for detailed billing or view it online and of course my 87 year old grandmother loves going online (NOT!!!), but people are being let go because of “attendance” and “performance statistics”. How do I know? I maybe one of those getting let go after only a mere three years (seems like almost a lifetime-dealing the people isn’t the easiest job), but when you have to show empathy to the ugliest attitude and attempt to calm them down, make everything right and get wrong info all the time and giving credits for every little thing, there’s a lot more to this monopoly. But as another person said, there are competitors and when a customer is angry enough they cancel and go somewhere else (especially when the majority of the call center is on short-term disability for “stress-related” issues), but they continue to hire people… there is more to this monopoly……

People wake up. The days of working for a company for 30 years and expecting a full retirement with health care benefits has been over a while. and if you want a CEO’s salary then start your own frickin company. In 1996 when the MA Bells broke up the smart started up their own companies and now the big companies that survived are now buying up all of the little companies and the CEO’S are now cashing put. By the way AT& T stands for American Telephone and Telegraph. They started this game and they will finish it, devouring up all the so called phone companies. Look at Level3 communications, they bought up 8 fiber communications companies and now can’t post a profit. The Telecommunications busines is usually feast or famine. It has been like that for a long time.

yup, everyone ATT&T is sooooo bad… please maybe we should think about some of the factors involved here….maybe the price of oil……causeing the rippling effects that we are seeing now…

Poor ATT people that will get layed off!

I find it truly hard to understand the fact that people employed for so long at the same job didn’t take the time when the had the time to plan their next move. Companies can only destroy your career if you sit there and let them do it. Really with all the experiences people here are claiming they possess they should be able to transition into a like kind career or should I say job. Remember your job was an at will position. I know there are many job openings available to all of those let go. Contact Comcast, Time Warner or another competitor. Hasn’t anyone been wooed by another competitor before? Trust me the talents required to run and manage the networks don’t come easily. Just check the lingo used in the industry. To all the opportunity is yours. March down the street to a competitor or better yet follow your passion and build it into a new career no one can fire you from. After all didn’t Alexander Graham Bell create this entire industry by following his own passion?

At some point, we all have to agree that AT&T had to “streamline” the company. I am sure there are alot of areas where individuals are doing the same job. They did said that they were hiring people on the wireless side of the business.

SBC was really good at offering early retirement before going the road of laying off employees. It’s a shame they aren’t doing that here.

Quit complaining about the high executive pay. I figured out a long time ago that the executives of most companies say the huge amounts of money certain actors/actresses in Hollywood were making for doing very little work - relative to the work an executive has to do - so the executive class decided they deserved equivalent compensation. The huge number of amoral nutjobs in Hollywood getting way too much money keeps the executive class of people demanding more money themselves. So if you want executives to take pay cuts, demand the Hollywood cult take pay cuts.

Me? I was laid off three times in the last nine years - the electronics business is boom and bust. Two of the companies no longer exist. I’m too old and worn out to work in the oil patch - oops, that is a boom and bust thing too.

What about AT&T ? I’d rather call it Southwestern Bell, at least here in Texas. Sure, the number of residential lines is going down.

Families are no longer getting a second line for the computer modem, as DSL incoporates a phone line; no longer getting a second line for the kids, as they now get cell phones (which is higher revenue than a land line). However, businesses pretty much have to have a land line for things like simple burglar alarm systems and fax machines; it’s only the much larger businesses that can afford to go with VOIP and their own trunks.

By the way, AT&T is advertising here in Austin, Texas - on billboards also - for technicians. But not for managers.

It’s unfortunate Fortune writers don’t read well or completely. The At&T release said
they are cutting the workforce by 4600
but “…head count would stay stable in 2008 as it hires workers to support growth areas…”

Looks like another example of the someone trying to sell magazines.

steve v. san francisco, california

Brian, not a political thread, but your comment does cause me to wonder how Obama is going to directly affect the salary of CEO’s, unless the government nationalizes big business. There are plenty of stories of CEO salary/incentive abuse. However, for the most part, the rich folks create/own the big businesses that give us not-rich folks a job.

Wow….had NO idea. Cancelling my wireless service, I’ll Hack my iPhone and move to TMobile. AT&T Execs, accountability starts at the top. When your Boat’s not moving in the right direction, you have to take care of the people who row it….

I am sorry to say but things are only going to get worse if you are an employee of At&t. No matter if you work in landline, wireless, or internet, you know what is really going to start hitting the fan… I am a former employee who was a manager in the wireless portion of At&t. I started with the company when it was Bellsouth Mobility then they changed to Cingular and now At&t. I spent four years in sales then another four years in management. Through those years, I saw some good changes but they were always outweighed by the bad ones. I outlasted many lay offs, restructurings, whatever you want to call them, they were all b.s. to me since they were mostly the hard working people that keep companies running strong and yes profitable. To make a long story short, I was let go about eight months ago. The companies excuse was that they were streamlining operations and condensing management down so each manager would cover a larger headcount. The only management they left in my department were the ones who had little tenure with the company and were earning the least…The call centers and all in one centers that sell the services are really going to feel the heat before too long. They already run those places like a prison camp. You have to get permission to use the bathroom, if you are gone more than two minutes you are subject to discipline. Even if you are a model employee, if you call in sick, break down or heaven forbid you have a death in the family, you will get a write up. In training, the trainers tell you to make personal arrangements before you start working for the company in case any circumstances come up. Uh no matter how much planning you do, how can you predict when something is going to happen. Oh wait let me call my psychic before I go to bed each night to make sure. Due to customers dropping services for many reasons and the lack of new customers seeing any benefit of the At&t products over their rivals, the call volumes will keep heading down in a downward spiral. When that happends there is no need for all of those employees taking a few calls a day. The wireless stores have already started to feel the flames. In my opinion, it seems like all the good employees that once cared about truly helping customers make wise decisions based on their needs have now been replaced with lower paid part-time order takers that only want to put as many services and features as they can on your account that you do not need, sometimes slamming your account without your knowledge, then get you in and out in the shortest amount of time without any kind of basic education to the customer of what they are getting or what they even came into the store for in the first place. Did you catch that? I said part-time employees. Step into any At&t mobility locations nationwide and I bet 50% of the employees are part-time. Some locations may not have any full-time employees except for a supervisor that is working seven days a week. That is one of company ways to save a buck by not having to offer any health benefits or perks that all Americans need to take care of their loved ones. I almost forgot, many of the wireless stores have already begun selling wireline, internet and dish. They are also being told that they have to go to businesses to solicit or they will be disciplined. All of this goes back to the call centers, they will have less and less to do and yes more lay offs. It will probably also mean more turnover in wireless employees since they are being asked to do more and more each day, constantly under pressure to make astronomical sales numbers and forget about world class customer service because thats a thing of the past!

With all these “job cutting savings”, we shareholders better get one heck of a dividend increase!!!

Ooh. Erik from TX. I forgot about their problem of finding “enough educated people in the US” for their crappy call center jobs. The problem isn’t there aren’t skilled people here it is that they don’t want to work for minimum wage because then they can’t feed their family!

Scott, guess you missed that reference to the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette said “Let them eat cake” I of course love cake too, but no job = no cake (or many other staples). Might be time to read some history?

This is just another excuse to send jobs overseas to a cheaper (but skilled) labor market. (It doesn’t help that a lot of these skilled workers are trained in our universities instead of our kids. They get their education here and take it and our jobs back to their country. Ratio of foreign grad students to US ones is amazing.)

AT&T’s layoff news is also conveniently timed to create a little mini-crisis. Now their lobbyists can again go crying to the federal government for even more anti-competitive, anti-market legislation. You would think AT&T and Verizon have thoroughly prevented a free telecommunications market already. They have stomped out any chance for startups to emerge. They ensure unregulated monopolistic fees for themselves. The efficiency and productivity of the telecommunications industry had increased exponentially. But the fees have grown, not dropped exponentially. Ma Bell has arisen from the grave. Where is Judge Green now that we again need him? Evidentially, AT&T fears that soon there may not be so many sympathetic ears in Congress and at the FCC. I hope their fear is justified. Hopefully, the GW Bush era of anticompetitive corporate protectionism will end. Hopefully, some in government will recall the discarded mandate of the FCC to ensure “public convenience and necessity” over private corporate protectionism. Hopefully a newly emerging WiMAX technology will deliver net neutrality, naturally enforcing competition and market pricing.

I wish John in IL was right, however he is dead wrong! When AT&T uses the term ‘managers’ or management’, it refers to all workers that are not union. The union represents the technicians and call ctr employees for the most part. All the rest of the ‘peons’ are called management within AT&T, even when nobody reports to them. I happen to be one of those ‘peons’ barely making it, living paycheck to paycheck. I know of over 20 people personally that lost their jobs at AT&T last week in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis, who were all living paycheck to paycheck. Don’t let their wording fool you. There were a few upper-mgmt “Jag driving” folks let go, but trust me, most of them had been with the company for years, and they just got a good early retirement package. Those of us in the lower pay levels were the ones really hurt, and the ones left behind are nervous that we will be next!

I am an AT&T employee and had many friends and co-workers that lost their jobs this past Thursday in Indiana. They were given 60 days to find a job within the company, but there are VERY few jobs available within the company! It happened throughout the Midwest region on Thursday– and will cause many headaches for mid-to-large size AT&T business customers. What is left for those of us lucky enough to avoid the job cuts on Thursday is an unbelievable workload and impending fear of how many more cuts are coming. Personally, I am ready for Sen. Obama to be in the White House, and for CEOs to stop living quite as “LARGE” as they do today in our country. Time for the richest Americans to stop getting richer off of the work of the lower to middle class working Americans.

Back in 99 I worked for AT&T for 6 years and the layed me, my sister, and father off like we were nothing. They should layoff the high paid CEO’s and corporate waste before sending a whole family out into the street. That is all I have to say about AT&T.

I think AT&T is overextended anyway. They have overspent on marketing without much product behind the effort. As a result their costs are very high compared to peers. They figured on a strong economy to pay back, not a weak one. Their only strong product is the iPhone in partnership with Apple. Since the alliance is contrary to net neutrality, they should face strong headwinds with this product as WiMAX emerges to enforce net neutrality.

I worked for AT&T for 9 years prior to the SBC merger. That company has wasted more money on constant failures. They are like Microsoft, get it out now and fix it later. Back in the days they resold local service, customers would not get bills for months - like 9 or more. AT&T’s problems are at the top, but they cut from the bottom up instead of top down. AT&T will never be any better than they already are with all the greed at the top.

I found it funny everyone thinks for the $25-$60 MILLION (cash/incentives) most Fortune top 20 companies pay the CEO that if you cut there pay you could not find a new, fresh, equally qualified CEO to run the company?.

Last I checked theres no shortage of people willing to work for $25 million versus $40 million LOL

What not cut retiree benefit costs? These old folks are not in a position to complain. This is dead wood, they are a cost to the company, they do not increase shareholder value. Take away the rest of their health insurance benefits, they already have lost dental, prescription drug and diagnostic benefits.

Clearly, Scott from Tennessee is a member of the southern Red State working poor, who takes great pleasure at seeing other share his plight, who masks his own pain by advocating for those who inflict it.
I know the element well, they are the once who voted for GW Bu7sh..twuice, and are amoung the 29%ers who still support him.
Newsflash Scott, If the consumer class has no job and no discretionary income, your beloved free market system fails…as you should realize by observation of the failed Bush economy over the past 7+ years

They will be losing alot of cell phone customers too if they don’t bring back some of the better technicians they let go from the Cingular days. Their service has deteriorated since Cingular ‘upgraded’ their system just before the AT&T buyout.

UMMM…. I like cake. Here’s an idea, you earned your check for the last two weeks and all the company owes you is NOTHING! When did the USA become a Communist State?

I don’t like Ma’Bell, but she don’t owe you squat. People like you all are what is wrong with this country. I’d bet you still have your 30 year old son living at home because “he’s getting established.”

WAKE UP - go leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home. Of course, that’s too difficult and requires effort. Go get a cushy job somewhere else and wait for that “unfair” downsizing to happen again.

Ben Franklin said it best, that a rut is just a GRAVE with the ends kicked out.

If you have to make budgetary cuts to personnel, make them global. If you ask anyone to take a paycut, Executive and Sr. Management should take the same paycut (to salary and bonus).

As OAO from Santa Barbara noted, you may lose the CEO if you cut his/her pay, as he/she is the head of the ship. This is true, but it also means that they are responsible for guiding the ship into the stormy waters, and must bear some of the burden for doing that. Why make the employees pay for that kind of mistake all on their own? Even if it symbolic, the execs should still cut their salaries. Most of their income comes from stock options anyway. Look at Steve Jobs. He takes a salary of $1, and has for years, which he started doing when Apple was really in bad straights. He still makes money via his stocks, but ONLY when the company does well. There are a few CEOs that get it.

Last month the CEO stated that the company could not find enough “skilled American employees” to bring jobs back from India. This month he ok’s a layoff. I bet it’s a confusing company to work for.

“largely involve regional managers”….

That isn’t the peon worker living paycheck to paycheck. That is the 4th line manager, the peon’s boss’s boss’s boss. Looks like they are cutting where you want them to cut, at thepeople who buy the Jags.

As the spouse of an AT&T employee, we have known this was coming for a few weeks. Your options are to accept a downgrade and a pay cut, reject a downgrade and be given 60 days to find a job in the company or be fired, or be moved to a new job within 50 miles from you current location, possibly with the downgrade and pay cut.

Of course, if you don’t jump and accept their “generous” offer, you are not a team player.

This affects much of the company, and it will take YEARS for this reorganization to actually pay off. Customers will be inconvenienced, careers destroyed, and upper management rewarded once again.

I don’t want to make a arguement here, but Corparations keep the higher payed people and still pay them bonuses because they want to keep the best talent. If some one is promoted with in and works there way up they must either be highly talented or a butt kisser. Either way they are considered a talent to the company that is hard to replace when the company starts to grow again.

You people obviously don’t understand the fundamentals of capitalism, which is how this system is based. Why would the CEO take a pay cut? He’s the head of the ship. If they slash his pay, the CEO will head for greener pastures.

The unfortunate reality is it is easier to find a ton of indians, but really hard to find a lot of good chiefs. And all the companies are competing over the good chiefs!

They should have not bought BellSouth. The CEO’s are the only ones making more money

I whole heartedly agree with these comments. As an CPA I see these type of things happen and over time have become more and more cynical towards upper management. A few years back at my wife’s company they were forced to cut costs, so what did they do? Axed about 200 people in the 30,000 to 50,000 pay range to hit budgets. But rest assured they department heads and up got their blasted bonuses ($100,000+ apiece) and the CEO got his ($400,000+)! Gotta get that *#$&@ng Jag! Where’s the compasion when you dump people working paycheck to paycheck but keep what is definitely excess cash flow for these people. I am for everyone making bucks but when times get hard those that have could forgo excess in favor of “raising all boats” Thanks for letting me vent.

I agree and that’s right, Jill. Tell it like it is!!

Why not cut some of the salaries and benefits for the senior management team???

God forbid that the CEO take a pay cut. Instead cut the jobs of the middle class workers! Let them eat cake!