Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

They will never offer more than what they are offering for MVO. All MVO does is allow those who want out a chance to do it now or risk quarterly selection. IF anything the offer will be reduced. I believe when IBM did layoffs they reduced from 6 months max severance to like 2 months to make the decision even harder.

@3uyr

• ”Is there anyone who can say they didn't accept a voluntary package and didn't get worse on an involuntary directly after...”?

Yes, anyone surplussed over the last 4 years would be able to state that. The Management Severance Plan is an official HR document; available for review on HR One Stop. Severance has to be offered in accordance with the Severance Plan. The plan could be revised at any time, but hasn’t been since August 2015.

I don't believe that they will offer less for involuntary severance, because the best time to TELL us they were going to do that would have been while making the voluntary offer, when it might "encourage" more to accept the voluntary offer.

No benefit to them to surprise us with it, rather than use it as a cudgel to get us to do what they want now.

But how does one know that if they don't accept the voluntary package, that the involuntary one we might get next would be worse or less? Is there anyone who can say they didn't accept a voluntary package and didn't get worse on an involuntary directly after?

@1gck It's probably more their hiring practices. Hire some d—beat, then don't hold them to any standards. If they let you select who gets hired, you'd probably have plenty of good people. Probably in the old days you had to do some grunt work to get where you are to weed out the fluff. Now people want to go straight to the top and bypass paying the dues. Now if you prodded or shamed the lazy person to pick up the work or to quit you'd probably have an HR complaint.

"If I were you 57+ age 25+ ncs, I would take it and take off asap. Why try to delay the inevitable? The message is so clear: oldies, go home and rest! I’m 40 and 15 yrs ncs... stuck in this mess..."

You eventually will be 57+, so will you leave then? Give me a break. We're all going to be working a lot longer because taxes and health care keep going up and it's getting really hard not to work and have enough money for all the expenses. I say stay 'til they pry your cold dead hand from your keyboard.

I took the vsipp 13 years in.
Retired in my mid 30’s.
Every situation is different.
Got bored and came back to the workforce for act 2.
There’s life outside those 4 walls.

Good question. I'm mid 30's. Taking it without hesitation. Can't find a good reason to stay.

@2wmk

• ”I’m 40 and 15 yrs ncs... stuck in this mess...”

Why? You’re only 40. That’s significantly different from someone 50+ years of age. And you’ve got a ways to go to MR 75, so why wouldn’t you simply jump now?

You could get rebadged some some folks

If I were you 57+ age 25+ ncs, I would take it and take off asap. Why try to delay the inevitable? The message is so clear: oldies, go home and rest! I’m 40 and 15 yrs ncs... stuck in this mess...

“If you do not have company health insurance or Medicare your health cost premiums will be really expensive”

Guessing you’re not Management. Guess what, the company offered health insurance is high deductible and quite expensive coverage... I am fortunate to have been able to get on my spouse’s plan. Also a large corporation, but significantly more affordable offerings, lower deductibles and premiums.

For all craft out there -we are entering into another "Year of Discipline " . The last one and this one will use HPD and MSOC to wage war. The result was poorer moral, number fudging, lots of disabilities and number of good older techs walked out which resulted in numerous lawsuits. Wish all of you "Good Luck"

The ones that took the hit with tech m are the H1Bs, they don’t have much choice. No job they get deported. I don’t know any citizen or green card holder with current In demand IT skills that would work for $35 / hr when they can get at least $50 in this economy. If they are working for that then they should be looking to go work some place else for more.

And we are talking about people who take the voluntary offer. Forced reduction will be next year and probably go for the next three years.

@1tng are you aware that many of the contractors salaries were greatly reduced when they were transitioned to Tech M? It’s all a money game, the contract house wants a piece & Tech M wouldn’t pay it, so the contractors themselves took the hit. $35 an hour is not even close to what they’re paid.

“Come back as a contractor with one of the outsourcing companies….” – if a company let me go and I believed it was not based on my performance, I would do all I could not to go back to the same company a as contractor. I feel that would be insulting to myself and my company peers I worked with. However, I understand your position and everyone’s situation is different.

“If you do not have company health insurance or Medicare your health cost premiums will be really expensive!!“

That’s why you get another job with benefits. I mean Amazon pays $15 minimum wage with benefits but I am sure most if not all with good experience can do much better then that. Come back as a contractor with on of the outsourcing companies. At a minimum should be able to get $35 an hour for a technical job and they have similar benefits to AT&T that you can buy into.

@1220XO0l-1gck

Okay, Boomer.

They outsourcing as a management tool because of all the in bred managers who have no clue.

All the infighting does no one any good. If ATT was serious about downsizing they would offer a serious offer like Verizon did to their employees. More takers and employees leave on better terms. Yes, that costs dollars. But in the long term is saves the company money.

6 months of severance for employees with 20 years Is c-ap, especially when considering if you get laid off, it’s the same thing. I know ATT union techs that have packages of 1yr or more. The management package is garbage.

If you do not have company health insurance or Medicare your health cost premiums will be really expensive!!

@1220XO0l-1mib
You are not Jesus. YOU don’t walk on water. I’ll bet you have dirt like everyone you generalize about. You live in a glass house and should get off that high horse you’re riding on. I’ll ok in the mirror and recognize YOU ARE NO SAINT EITHER.

@1gck

Glad to hear it and wish we had more techs like you. If we did we’d probably be much better off. The problem is over the years I’ve seen abusers of union protection much more in the 30+ year service range much more than youngsters. I’ve seen managers making very good money that are barely competent enough to remain employed. It’s frustrating. That’s just my experience that I have seen directly, I’m not talking about stories and rumors here. I know we have many more good hard working folks than the bad eggs, and that’s why I’m still here.

“If someone is employed they have a role in the Company.”

This is laughable at best. I have seen this with my own eyeballs over the course of many years, we have dead weight. We have senior technicians that kick their feet up on the desk in the morning, abuse disability benefits, sleep in their trucks in alleys, Refuse work since they aren’t “trained”, etc etc. I’ve seen the same things in management, just in different ways. So this is not a union vs mgmt thing. The fact of the matter is that it is difficult to fire low performers in this company if they haven’t violated COBC or some other policy.

So your comment about having a role if you’re employed is nonsense. My guess is you’re a troll who doesn’t even work for this company, or have already been laid off for being one of these low performers I’m talking about.

“There” not “their” I meant to say. Hard to type from a “smartphone” and then it replaces it with the wrong word. 😑

Lol you want to talk dead weight ? I’m 62 and running circles around many techs in their 20s and 30s. I know every generation gripes about the ones after it but still , I’m pretty sure the world hasn’t seen a lazier generation come along than the ones currently in their 20 and 30s. They waste sooo much of their days looking at their phone and while at work. I’ll have a whole business site’s cable pulled and then go see how my young co-worker is doing only to discover he’s still struggling to program the PBX. I thought this generation was at least supposed to be good at computers ? I end up doing the whole jobs myself because you can’t train this generation. They are just too interested in their smartphones to pay attention to anything else. I’m also in better shape than many of them. They complain of being tired and needing breaks often. They don’t want to do the dirty parts of the job either. Afraid to get dirty. They just want to be keyboard techs. They don’t want to pull cable and when they do they are soooo slow and usually get hurt. Now, I’m speaking in generalities. Of course their are good young techs just like their ARE deadwood lazy old timers who just want to collect a paycheck. However , overall , I’m not impressed with this age group. I don’t blame them completely; It’s the poor education system in this country and it’s the parents not teaching them to work hard when they are young.

So good luck to not only att but all businesses. You are going to have a huge skills gap and worse :a “work ethic” gap
when my generation retires, which is soon.

Here for the ratio.

Everyone at this company contributes something of value, it just may not be in the way I think it should be. When I was younger I was way too ignorant and hard-headed to see it.

@1220XO0l-1mop

Your arrogance is very unbecoming. Karma says you get yours 1st Quarter 2020.

If someone is employed they have a role in the Company. For you to opinion an older employee with seniority is deadwood says a lot about your holier than thou attitude. You’ll get yours somewhere in your lifetime. It’ll be totally unfair yet it’ll be karma coming back.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=48sbE7DgRms

@ 1acu

Well, I’m like you in that I am not retirement age and still enjoy my job. But the point being we are not the target of the offer. Let’s all be honest in that we know this company has lots of dead weight in those that are well into retirement age yet are still hanging on. Let’s also be honest in that a large portion of those that fit that category and making the most money and are probably not the biggest contributors. I believe offering severance to step forward and retire is aimed at those folks who otherwise may not be caught in an involuntary surplus.

In any event, this site is full of bitter people commenting who would never consider anything the company does fair or justified. I think that is or for the course for the environment we’re in, but they don’t have to offer sh–, yet here they are offering a significant amount of money for folks that might be in the fence about leaving anyways.

What is the point no direction, where are we sailing? Should have had 5G first focused on customers shareholders screw Randys pipe dreams

They are getting sued for pension buyout for reason.

AT&T "can't seem to fathom why they are unable to get the numbers they are looking for." Give me a break! They have a good idea of the take rate, and will make up the target gap through involuntary. Makes perfect sense to me.

AT&T has the option to get it all done now through involuntary.

What would you do if it were your company?

Some might perceive the glass as half full.

@ehw

OP here. Not at all complaining about being offered the standard severance to volunteer to leave, as I don’t think most that have posted on topic are. Just stating that I’m not interested in taking that offer, when I would get the same thing if I was surplussed. I am not old enough to retire, I like my job, and I make good money. So what exactly is supposed to be enticing about the offer from the company for me to volunteer to leave? Anyone capable of rational thought can understand that if the company wants to be taken seriously about getting folks to volunteer in numbers, they should somehow enhance their offer (which they used to do). But they won’t. So they don’t get the volunteers, and we head to involuntary surplus.

@1220XO0l-agc

Because we’re in the entitlement age. Funny as I imagine most of the whiners complaining about a company offering them 6 months of free salary are also the ones who complain about millennials and their perceived entitlement.

Simplest of decisions here...stay until they boot you!

Whether taking the offer makes one eligible for unemployment is governed by state law. In my state, taking an offer in a program to "reduce force" makes one eligible for unemployment compensation.

So, if you're not sure about your state, check with your unemployment office.

Those that are ready to leave will take the offer. Not sure why so many posters on this site feel they deserve extra incentive to take an offer. AT&T should reduce the severance payment!