AT&T employees are pushing to continue working from home as an option, citing “long commutes, exorbitant childcare costs, ongoing concerns about the options’ exposure to COVID-19, and now monkeys,” according to The Guardian. From the report: At AT&T, the world’s largest telecommunications company, workers represented by the Communications Workers of America have agreed to an extension to work from home until the end of March 2023, but workers say the company is forcing many workers back into the office much earlier, while other departments were already forced to return to the office by their managers. […] AT&T employees have launched a petition to make working from home a permanent option for their employees. […] Val Williams, an AT&T employee and head of the Communications Workers of America union in Houston, Texas, was forced to return to office work in April 2022. She criticized the drive to bring workers back to the office after she said workers were being praised for their productivity while working from home.
Williams criticized the refusal to return to the office, noting that AT&T is a communications company with the technology and resources to make working from home a seamless option. “Our revenue has increased over the past two years while we’ve been working from home. Our job descriptions say we’re able to operate with virtually minimal management, and that’s what we’ve been doing,” she said. She also claimed it was unfair the way workers were forced back into the office when some departments were brought back and others were still working from home. “We don’t think that one person’s health is better than another’s. Because everyone has their own health problems, or they may have family members who have health problems and they have to go home,” she added . […] An AT&T spokesman did not provide figures on how many of the company’s employees still work from home, but said the company never intended to make working from home permanent. “The health and safety of our employees remains our top priority,” the spokesperson said in an email. “As throughout the pandemic, we are following the advice of the medical community, including implementing safety protocols to help protect the well-being of our employees. And now that we have largely vaccinated employees, we believe it is safe for employees to return to their workplaces. We do our best work when we’re together.”
