UNINCORPORATED ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. – More than a hundred union workers at the AT&T building on Inverness Drive West joined in a nationwide three-day-long strike against the company.
The strike started on Friday. The effort has now involved close to 40,000 AT&T workers in more than 30 states.
The movement came after the wireless carrier’s union, Communication Workers of America, accused AT&T of failing employees on several issues including raised wages and job security assurance against outsourcing, among other things.
“Then there's a lot of policies and procedures that need to be changed and put into place to make the environment more secure and fair,” Mimi Mahdi said. She’s the strike captain for CWA Local 7750.
Mahdi explained workers want wage increases covering higher health care costs, better scheduling and promises from the company to not cut jobs.
Wireless workers also want AT&T to stop off-shoring jobs.
“My call center is technical support. I'm sure everybody here has called technical support and not been able to understand them. They don't understand you. There's really a communication barrier,” Riley Emmons, 20, said.
The union estimates that nearly 12,000 call center jobs have been shipped overseas since 2011.
CWA called for the strike. They want to compel AT&T to adopt several demands involving the issues previously mentioned.
Mahdi said AT&T union workers went on strike in several nearby cities including Boulder, Fort Collins, Greeley, Lakewood, Denver and Aurora.
*** Web-story updated to reflect the strike location in unincorporated Arapahoe County, though address of AT&T building is 161 Inverness Drive West, Englewood, CO 80112.