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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 21 2019, @12:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the business-as-usual dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

AT&T Lays Off Thousands After Nabbing Billions In Tax Breaks And Regulatory Favors

Back in November of 2017 AT&T promised that if it received a tax break from the Trump administration, it would invest an additional $1 billion back into its network and employees. At the time, CEO Randall Stephenson proclaimed that "every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs." Not "entry-level jobs," AT&T promised, but "7,000 jobs of people putting fiber in ground, hard-hat jobs that make $70,000 to $80,000 per year."

Yeah, about that.

The Trump tax cut resulted in AT&T getting billions in immediate tax relief, and roughly $3 billion in tax savings annually, in perpetuity. Yet when it came time for AT&T to re-invest this money back into its network and employees, AT&T actually did the opposite and began laying them off in droves. Unions claim AT&T has laid off an estimated 23,000 workers worldwide since the Trump tax plan, with investors and executives unsurprisingly pocketing the savings. This week, the word came down that AT&T would be laying off thousands more as it wraps up fiber deployment:

"Leaked internal documents confirmed most of the 1,800 planned job cuts. One AT&T surplus declaration shows that more than 900 of the surplus jobs come from the company's Southeast division in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. This document attributes most of the cuts to "economic" reasons and some to "technological/operational efficiency."


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  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday June 21 2019, @04:30PM (2 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Friday June 21 2019, @04:30PM (#858600)

    Absolutely. I'd love to know the political history- like, in light of anti-monopoly / antitrust legislation, why they allowed it to happen. I know, because even the company reps. sing the song, that they (Verizon and AT&T anyway) are heavily regulated by the govt. But did the govt. pass legislation and forget to check on how things are going? Did the clever corporations find loopholes and work around the regulations? Are we all to blame because we're not demonstrating in the streets? I tend to think the lobbyists are the problem- congress hears them and not us. Oh, I'm sure some congressional committee will "look into the situation" but that'll take months and we'll be on to many other topics by then.

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  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday June 22 2019, @12:00AM (1 child)

    by captain normal (2205) on Saturday June 22 2019, @12:00AM (#858710)

    AT&T was broken up in the early 1980s after a long anti-trust investigation. But not really broken up as for the most part the Boards of the "Baby Bells" were of the same few dozen people. Around the turn of the century they were all being gathered together again under the Southwestern Bell umbrella, eventually once again becoming AT&T.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_AT%26T [wikipedia.org]

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 22 2019, @02:26AM

      by RS3 (6367) on Saturday June 22 2019, @02:26AM (#858741)

      My aunt worked for "The Phone Company" for many years. I even have some cherished tools that are labeled "Bell System". When that breakup happened, she had the option of going with AT&T or the local Bell operating company ("Baby Bells"). I forget what it was called then. It got gobbled up by the growing new monopoly Verizon. Anyway, she opted for AT&T and worked there until retirement.

      IIRC, technically AT&T continued in existence, but for a while only handled "long-distance" and competed with MCI, and I think Sprint, and some others. And of course much of the Internet "backbone".

      Yes, when the smoke cleared and all new people were in govt., the memory faded and the monopolies rebuilt.

      Was it Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" that started out with the corporation monsters? All I know is I'm mentally picturing huge buildings destroying civilization.