By Luther Turmelle, North Bureau Chief
lturmelle@newhavenregister.com

AT&T has reached a tentative agreement with Local 1298 of the Communications Workers of America that protects 84 percent of the 3,900 members of the union from having their jobs moved out of Connecticut and includes pay increases of 8.75 percent.

William Henderson, president of the Hamden union local, said Thursday the three-year agreement, which was reached Wednesday, comes after nearly 1 1/2 years of tough negotiations. AT&T’s contract with Local 1298 expired in April 2009.

“We won a concession from AT&T that no one else was able to accomplish,” Henderson said, referring to other CWA bargaining units. “We would have preferred to have 100 percent of our members’ jobs protected, but you have to compromise. We had no protection before.”

Henderson said the union also agreed to have members, for the first time, make monthly contributions to health care premiums.

Marty Richter, a national AT&T spokesman, said company officials are pleased to have reached an agreement with the union. The agreement is the seventh and final one reached with bargaining units representing about 120,000 employees of AT&T’s traditional phone service business nationwide, Richter said.

“Even in tough economic times and in the midst of major changes in the marketplace and our industry, the three-year agreement continues to offer wages and benefits that are among the best in the country,” he said.

The tentative agreement actually represents two contracts — one covering 400 workers employed by the company’s telephone directory business, and another covering 3,500 employed by AT&T Connecticut.

The contract is retroactive to April 2009, and includes two retroactive 3 percent pay increases, as well as a 2.75 percent increase in August 2011.

Ballots for workers to vote on the contract will be mailed Monday. The Boston office of the American Arbitration Association will count the ballots Sept. 7.

Henderson said Local 1298 will have a chance to get detailed information about the agreement, which is more than 200 pages long, at meetings Aug. 26 and 28 at the Aqua-Turf Club in Southington. Continued...

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Negotiations between the company and the union were sometimes strident, as Local 1298 criticized AT&T for laying off technicians who made repairs to its traditional telephone service network even as it was hiring workers who weren’t unionized in other parts of the company, such as its wireless division.

CWA leaders spent much of the past year trying to use public pressure to reach an agreement with AT&T. For example, it spent more than $2,500 a week on billboard messages along Interstate 91 in New Haven criticizing the company.

Call Luther Turmelle at 203-789-5706.

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