Gus May has worked as a service technician for AT&T for 45 years. He’s spent his entire career with the company, having a front-row seat to the evolution of technology over the past four decades, and believes it is a great one to work for.
But he and 17,000 other AT&T workers in Atlanta and across the Southeast are on strike, having walked off their jobs on Aug. 16 amid an impasse in contract negotiations.
May and several other AT&T employees have spent the past two weeks picketing outside of an AT&T service facility in Tucker, holding up signs that say, “Honk if you support workers,” and “Fighting for the middle class.” And as the federal holiday celebrating the American labor movement approaches on Monday, the picketers are pushing for better pay, benefits and hours.
“We love it because we’re standing for a cause,” said Reggie Tinch, a service technician who has spent 25 years with AT&T. “We’re standing up for fair labor practices, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Only about 5% of workers in Georgia belong to labor unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about half the national average. But organized labor has notched some recent organizing successes in the South and nationally since the pandemic and the election of a labor-friendly president in Joe Biden.