AT&T announces major job cuts

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)-- For the third year in a row, AT&T is announcing job cuts right at the holidays. 106 people were told to come to a meeting at the New Haven headquarters Friday morning to get the news.

Employees poured out of the headquarters with paperwork in their hands outlining retirement plans.

The union President says he'll fight the latest layoffs announced by AT&T.

"Something's wrong and this is a fight we're going to have," said CWA local 1298 President Bill Henderson.

The Communication Workers of America has had plenty of disputes with the corporation in recent years. Workers took to the picket lines about wages, benefits and job security.

"And we also had,  two weeks ago they notified us that they were laying off 100 operators, and these are entry level jobs, so it's a total of 206 people in the last two weeks," said Henderson.

As bad as this news is for the folks getting laid off, the union president says it could be bad for you too.

Many of the guys losing their jobs are the ones who go out in trucks like these and restore your service after a storm, and he says that means it could take a lot longer for you to get hooked up next time.

"When we had hurricane Irene, it took our state down economically for a week and a half, and we can't afford to do that going into the future. We have to do better, we can't do worse," said Henderson.

And many of these workers spent most of the past month working mandatory overtime to restore service after hurricane Sandy. The union asks how they can be so in demand one week, and laid off the next.

And to meet the state's storm restoration standards, the union is now asking state regulators to step in.

A spokesman for AT&T Corporate Communications, Marty Richter, sent the following statement below.