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Three months after agreeing to a new contract with workers at its Fleming Island facility, AT&T Inc. said it is eliminating 135 customer service positions at the site.
The communications company said in a Dec. 13 letter to the Florida Department of Commerce under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act that the workers at the site at 2000 Town Center Blvd. in Orange Park have 60 days to seek another position in the company.
The company then sent a corrected letter Dec. 17 saying the workers have until March 22 to find another job within AT&T or they will terminated from employment.
The corrected letter also said three management positions are being eliminated, in addition to the 135 jobs listed in the Dec. 13 letter.
“We’re undergoing targeted workforce reductions and focusing on growth areas as part of our regular review of operations to ensure we have the right level of support where needed,” an AT&T spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“Reducing our workforce is a difficult decision that we don’t take lightly. We make every effort to do this through attrition, voluntary departures, and reskilling efforts, but there are times like this when additional reductions are necessary. Eligible employees will be provided severance pay and benefits.”
The layoffs come after about 17,000 members of the Communications Workers of America, including some in Fleming Island, began a strike against AT&T on Aug. 16.
The strike ended when the two sides announced a new contract Sept. 15.
The five-year contract covering 17,000 workers in nine Southeastern states included wage increases of 19.33%.
“Our members were clear from the start: every CWA member at AT&T has value and no one should be treated like a second-class employee. These new contracts provide our members with family-supporting wages and benefits, and address longstanding concerns about overtime and overscheduling which not only kept them away from their families and unable to plan their own lives, it negatively affected the quality of service our members want to deliver,” CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said in an October news release after the contract was ratified by members.
The CWA media relations department did not respond to an email seeking information on the Fleming Island layoffs.
This story has been updated with information from a corrected Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter sent by AT&T
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