Dan DiMaggio

One big issue in May’s three-day strike by 38,000 AT&T workers was the company’s offshoring of jobs. To shine a spotlight on the issue and strengthen international solidarity, a group of union members visited the Dominican Republic a couple of weeks before the strike to meet the call center workers on the other end of that offshoring.

According to the Communications Workers (CWA), AT&T has closed 30 U.S. call centers and downsized dozens of others since 2011, eliminating 12,000 jobs—nearly one-third of all its call center employees.

“Retail workers are basically told their entire lives that they’re never going to have any power in any way, in any facet of their lives,” says Will Blum, who works at an AT&T Mobility store in Boston.

But tens of thousands of cell-phone retail workers proved otherwise in May when they walked out on strike for three days, fighting for new contracts with the tenth-largest company in the U.S.

Addicted to Profits: Workers Locked Out at New Jersey Drug Treatment Facility

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One hundred ten addiction treatment beds are empty, and 120 employees without a paycheck, after for-profit American Addiction Centers locked workers out of its Lafayette, New Jersey, facility.

The day before workers planned to kick off a three-day strike, the company changed the locks on the building and put patients on planes to its other facilities around the country.

'Together and Unified,' AT&T Workers Launch Three-Day Strike

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Forty thousand AT&T workers in 36 states launched a three-day strike on Friday afternoon, as they continue their push for new contracts with the telecom giant, the tenth largest company in the U.S.

It’s the first strike ever for 21,000 retail and call center workers and technicians in the company's wireless division, Mobility. They're joined by 17,000 AT&T wireline workers in California, Nevada, and Connecticut, as well as DirecTV technicians in California and Nevada. All are members of the Communications Workers (CWA).

Ever wanted to graffiti your boss a message in the toilet stall? AT&T Mobility workers put their own twist on that idea. They’re bringing the bathroom to the boss—carrying toilet seats to retail stores and call centers to demand that the company stop flushing their sales commissions and incentive pay down the toilet.

The Union Goes Live:

Phone Workers Learn Their Rights

Building Trades Activists Stand Up to Trump

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When they heard President Donald Trump would address the Building Trades national legislative conference, activists from Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569 knew they had to do something.

“We couldn’t let him come and speak to us and just sit there,” said William Stedham, a “workaday Joe” and executive board member of the San Diego-based local. “If we hadn’t, everyone would think that the Building Trades was on board with him 100 percent, and we’re not.”

How can unions help create a social movement to take on Wall Street’s economic and political dominance?

AT&T Mobility workers are waging their largest-ever contract mobilization. In retail stores and call centers across the country they’re sporting “We Demand Good Jobs” buttons, picketing on their days off, plastering union flyers on their lockers, and blowing up Facebook with pictures of their activities. These actions are helping knit together a sense of solidarity among 21,000 union members dispersed throughout 36 states.

Arkansas poultry workers, Brooklyn warehouse workers and house cleaners, Twin Cities roofers, and thousands of students in places like Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Charlotte, North Carolina. They were all among the tens of thousands who stayed home from work or school across the country during Thursday, February 16’s “Day without Immigrants.”

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