AT&T, CWA Southwest reach tentative agreement

AT&T (NYSE: T) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 6 recently came to a tentative agreement with wireline workers in the telco's Southwest territory.

District 6 covers around 22,000 CWA members who work in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.

At this point, the CWA and AT&T are providing union members and locals details of the agreement with plans to schedule a ratification vote.

The CWA are also negotiating the terms of a new contract with AT&T West, which covers 18,000 CWA members in California and Nevada, and with AT&T East in Connecticut, covering 3,000 members of CWA Local 1298.

During the past year, the service provider made continued progress with its union workers, ratifying new contracts with AT&T Midwest, AT&T Legacy and AT&T Southeast.

Overall, 2012 was a big year for U.S. telcos and their wireline union workers.

Besides AT&T, fellow ILEC Hawaiian Telcom (Nasdaq: HCOM) last week reached a major accord with its union employees, who voted to ratify a five-year collective bargaining agreement.

Meanwhile, CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) continued to make progress with their wireline unions.

CenturyLink is continuing negotiations with the CWA union, covering 13,000 workers in District 7 of the former Qwest Communications region as well as members of CWA Local 6171, covered by two separate contracts in Arkansas. Verizon in September reached tentative three-year contract agreements with the IBEW and the CWA.

For more:
- see the release

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