AT&T employees represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) System Council T-3 employees have voted to ratify a five-year contract with the telco.
The new contract, which was originally announced on April 26, covers nearly 5,000 wireline employees mainly in Illinois and Northwest Indiana. At that time, the IBEW and AT&T had reached only a tentative agreement.
IBEW System Council T-3 represents technicians, service representatives, clerical workers and other AT&T employees.
RELATED: AT&T, IBEW reach deal covering Midwest wireline workers
Employees that work under this contract will be able to take advantage of a number of wage and retirement benefits. Employees will be eligible for a 13.3% wage increase over the life of the contract and a $1,000 signing bonus. Additionally, the contract includes provisions to increase pension benefits and a no-layoff agreement through March 1, 2018.
With this latest agreement in place, AT&T has reached, and union-represented employees have ratified, 29 labor agreements with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and IBEW since the beginning of 2015, covering over 128,000 employees in total.
Additionally, the company announced in April that it will hire 1,000 people into IBEW-represented jobs in the next five years, including opening a new call center in Chicago.
But the service provider is not entirely out of the woods in the union negotiation process. The service provider sill is in the process of working out a new contract with 17,000 wireline workers in the three states represented by the CWA union.
Earlier this month, CWA-represented AT&T employees in California, Connecticut and Nevada joined their fellow wireless workforce in a three-day strike.