Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today filed a request with the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) for an emergency stay blocking AT&T from laying off about 400 employees in the state, charging that the job cuts will further weaken the company’s already dismal service performance.
Blumenthal also asked the DPUC to reconsider its rejection of his earlier request to stay about 60 AT&T layoffs announced in October and to scrutinize the impact of job reductions on AT&T’s deteriorating customer and repair service.
AT&T has failed for eight consecutive years to meet DPUC’s minimum repair standards. Blumenthal noted in his request that AT&T’s service and repair standards have declined at the same time it eliminated almost 1,000 customer service-related jobs.
Blumenthal said, “I am asking the DPUC to stay these layoffs, which will accelerate and exacerbate AT&T’s unacceptable and dangerous decline in service. These latest layoffs will further degrade customer care, in clear violation of legal standards. We must stop these latest devastating job cuts -- decimating AT&T's residential customer service in Connecticut. AT&T is hanging up on Connecticut -- abandoning both consumers and employees, and damaging their families in the worst possible economic times.
"AT&T has a moral as well as legal obligation to meet repair service standards for 1.67 million telephone lines in the state. Flawed service inconveniences and endangers consumers who depend on reliable phone service to seek help from hospitals, police, firefighters and families. These job cuts downsize and degrade service reliability.”
Communications Workers of American Local 1298 President William
Henderson said, “AT&T in its zeal to maximize profits forgot about service.
Service is the foundation that the telecommunications industry was built on and should be the only driving force in the decision-making process. AT&T’s approach is about increasing the bottom line and keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer. AT&T -- which remains hugely profitable -- is seizing on the economic situation to maximize its profits at the expense of workers and customers.”
Blumenthal added, "AT&T answers its phones four times slower than other telephone companies, and its call abandonment rate is four times higher. So abysmal is its service, that consumers are giving up and hanging up -- completely unable to get quality service that they deserve and need."
