1983 AT&T strike

Strike

The unions' previous contracts had been set to expire one minute after midnight on August 7, 1983. As the unions were unable to reach an agreement with AT&T before then, they immediately went on strike. At its peak, 675,000 telecommunications workers were on strike across the United States.

From the beginning of the strike, negotiators were at an impasse. AT&T wanted to offer workers in their top positions a pay raise of 0-2.7% over the contract period, while CWA negotiators wanted raises in the 20% range. AT&T wanted workers to pay 100% of their health premiums under the new contract and CWA workers wanted a comprehensive retraining program for workers displaced by technological change. By the end of the second week of the strike, union leadership stated there remained substantial differences between them and AT&T negotiators.

Part of what served to alleviate the impacts of the strike on customers was Bell System's decision move some of their 250,000 middle managers into the positions vacated by the strikers. During the strike, Bell System's middle management served as internal strikebreakers, operating switchboards in the place of striking workers. Managers had to work 12-hour shifts to cover for the striking operators. As the strike continued, AT&T decided to unlock all vending machines in their buildings, and later started offering free, catered meals for workers who crossed the picket line.

Demands

The telecommunications workers argued that they deserved as high as a 7% raise in order to reflect increased productivity and AT&T's favorable position in the market. AT&T was expecting to make $7 billion in profit that year. CWA president Glenn Watts said they were offered "virtually nothing" during negotiations. AT&T said it needed to preserve wages and reduce worker benefits in order to remain economically viable in the face of new competition.

Other demands included:

• Employment security
• A comprehensive retraining and worker retention program for workers displaced by technological change in the industry
• Improvements in workers' health and pension plans

Another concern for workers at the time was how AT&T's divestiture from Bell System would affect their rights as employees of AT&T, as many were slated to be moved to new companies.

Hurricane Alicia emergency response

Hurricane Alicia was a category-3 hurricane that affected Greater Houston. At the time, it was one of the most devastating hurricanes to impact the United States mainland, killing three people and costing $3 billion in damage.

Hurricane Alicia increased the workload on the already overburdened managers, as telecommunications infrastructure repair people were among those participating in the strike. The CWA offered to send some of its members to provide emergency repairs to infrastructure in the affected areas without pay. At first, AT&T accepted the CWA's offer, but later reversed its decision. AT&T suggested that workers returning to provide repairs would be crossing the picket line and denied entry to workers who wouldn't accept pay.

CWA spokesperson Duayne Trecker argued that Southwestern Bell was exploiting the effects of Hurricane Alicia to sway public opinion against the strikers, following a call to the public from Southwestern Bell seeking volunteers to restore telephone service to Texas residents affected by the hurricane. Trecker also claimed that the company threatened to replace all striking workers in the affected region, which AT&T spokesperson Pic Wagner denied. Local media responded more favorably to the unions than AT&T during the hurricane dispute.

Direct action

During the strike, there were scattered reports of vandalism of telephone equipment and incidents of violence related to the strike across the United States. The unions denied responsibility for these actions.

In New Jersey, there were 25 acts of sabotage reported within the first three days of the strike. These actions resulted in phone service being cut to the New Jersey state police barracks and the major army base Fort Dix. In Chicago, 47 acts of sabotage were reported in the first week, including a lit highway flare that was placed in a switching box, cutting phone service to the DuPage County Sheriff's Department. In California, Pacific Telephone reported 227 incidents of sabotage over the course of the strike.

In addition to the acts of sabotage, there was some militancy among the picket lines. In Providence, Rhode Island, strikers fought with mounted police, and one fight in Brooklyn led to three arrests and three police injuries.

Lucius Cabins, writing for the Processed World Collective, argued that workers chose to sabotage telecommunications infrastructure because they felt excluded from negotiations, which largely occurred in private meetings between union leadership and company management. The main role of rank and file workers during the strike was to participate in picket lines. The sabotage served to keep strikebreakers in a state of crisis management.

Effects

The 1983 AT&T strike did not obviously affect phone services for most customers because by then most calls were dialed directly. 97% of all basic phone services were completely automated.

The primary impacts of the strike were on repairs, installations, and access to operators and directory assistance. Internally, both the re-tasking of managers as strikebreakers and the significant participation of clerical workers in the strike served to stall important processes related to AT&T's divestiture.

Outcome

In the third week of the strike, the CWA and AT&T came to a national agreement, but it would take an additional week to resolve all local disputes. The remaining locals finalized their agreements on the morning of August 29, 1983, bringing the 21-day strike to an end.

Both the unions and management made concessions in order to reach an agreement. The unions secured a $31 million fund for retraining workers whose jobs were made obsolete due to technological change in the telecommunications industry, in addition to an incentive-bonus program for early retirement. The telecommunications companies retained the ability to lay off workers based on market conditions, as no specific job security guarantees were made in the final contract. The telecommunwications workers were promised a 5.5% raise in the first year of the contract, and a 1.5% raise plus a cost of living adjustment during the second and third years, for a 18.4% cumulative raise over the contract's term. Additionally, AT&T would continue paying 100% of workers' health premiums.

The union attempted to sanction workers who chose to cross the picket line by ostracizing them and levying fines. Such fines are hard to enforce, and by the time the CWA was next on strike three years later, it had only collected fines from two workers.