The following story, coupled with the intent of the state of the union, represents further evidence that the US neo-feudal lords of capital have instituted and implemented their plans to reduce the US workforce, particularly the unionized one, to petty paupers equal to their third world counterparts. At some point all of the generation of capital and economic success will be taking place in Asia. If the US doesn't become a non-minimum wage, non-union production nation it will not be able to sustain any possibility for continued existence.
SBC Communications Inc. and AT&T Corp. plan to eliminate almost 13,000, or 12 percent, of their combined jobs if SBC's proposed $16 billion takeover of its former parent is approved. The companies presented the job figures to Wall Street analysts at a meeting Tuesday in New York. Executives emphasized that many of the job cuts would involve attrition, leaving empty positions unfilled.<>
Before the two companies unveiled their proposed merger earlier this week, SBC was already planning to cull 7,000 positions from its 163,000-member workforce by the end of 2005. AT&T, for its part, was planning to trim 5,000 positions from its workforce of 47,000. If all the cuts are added up, the staff would be reduced 12 percent for the combined company over the next few years.
The annual savings from the deal are seen at $200 million to $600 million by the second half of 2006, reaching $2.4 billion to $2.9 billion by 2009, according to the companies' executives. Nearly 60 percent of the expected savings will come from the elimination of jobs, they noted. <>Of the 13,000 job reductions, 1,700 would take place in sales, 3,400 in business operations and 5,125 jobs in engineering and network management. Other departments, including legal, human resources and advertising, would see some 2,600 jobs cut.
SBC executives say that about 12,000 workers leave the company voluntarily each year - mostly by retiring or finding other jobs - and that a lot of those empty positions would be eliminated. In the past, executives have said they wanted to avoid outright layoffs to prevent damaging the morale of remaining employees. <>To some extent, the company is also constrained by a new five-year contract it signed with union members in 2004. SBC has to offer new jobs elsewhere in the company to workers whose jobs are no longer deemed necessary. Unionized workers, who've seen their numbers dwindle in recent years, made job protection their top priority in the last round of negotiations. About 105,000 of SBC's 160,000 employees and 16,000 of AT&T's 47,000 workers are union members.
The planned job cuts are almost certain to result in some layoffs, but the companies won't offer specifics until the merger is closer to approval. Federal regulators could take up to a year or more to decide.Still, the two unions that represent telecommunications workers both issued statements in support of the merger. They say the combined company will cut fewer workers than if AT&T and SBC had remained separate. <>Indeed, AT&T has been shedding jobs rapidly over the past few years amid a steady erosion in sales. SBC has also eliminated thousands of jobs.
