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NATCHEZ — Josh Goldman, a Natchez AT&T employee, said over the past 11 days Natchez workers have joined thousands of other picketing AT&T workers in nine states across the southeast who are on an “unfair labor” strike.

Goldman stood by around 10 other Natchez-area employees outside the AT&T building on Main Street. He said they arrive at 8 a.m. each day and usually leave around 4 p.m.

“It’s not about getting more money. It’s not about economics,” Goldman said of the reason for the strike.

The issue, Goldman said, is that AT&T has refused to use good faith bargaining tactics with workers for a new contract, which is renewed every four years. The last contract expired Aug. 3, leaving employees without a contract to protect them from unfair labor practices. Workers have been attempting to reach a new contract since June.

Brandon Smith, another employee, said “Without a contract, the company can do a lot of things that they would like to do normally but can’t. There’s nothing to protect the employees from working too much overtime or not getting their breaks right now.”

As a result, around 17,000 Communication Workers of America District 3 union members in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee walked off the job.

Goldman said these are all working family members who, while on strike, are not getting paid.

“Our families are suffering because they won’t negotiate with us,” he said. “Their only response to that has been we’re ‘second class employees.’”

Goldman said the last time the Natchez workers had a strike was in 2019, but it only lasted two or three days.

Blanche DeLaughter, who has been working with the company for 56 years, recalled the next longest strike she’d been part of in the 1980s, which lasted more than 20 days.

On Aug. 22, CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. released a statement that said, “I have been in close contact with CWA District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt, and I have complete faith in our bargaining team. I have told AT&T executives that the striking workers and the bargaining team have my full support. I expect AT&T to treat every member with respect and to send representatives to the table who have the authority to bargain and who are serious about bargaining in good faith.

“During the strike, AT&T has been sending undertrained managers and contractors to perform highly technical work,” Honeycutt said. “Our members have seen them at work in their communities and documented unsafe practices, including failure to wear proper safety equipment, failure to secure ladders and other equipment, putting the worker and nearby vehicles and pedestrians at risk, and failure to mark work areas with safety cones. We are encouraging members of the public to use extra caution when encountering these worksites.”

In a statement to the Associated Press, AT&T denied the union’s accusation of unfair labor practices.

“CWA’s claims of unfair labor practices are not grounded in fact. We have been engaged in substantive bargaining since Day One and are eager to reach an agreement that benefits our hard-working employees,” the company said. AT&T said it reached three separate agreements this year covering more than 13,000 employees.

AT&T also refuted the claim that it was “sending undertrained managers and contractors to perform highly technical work” during the strike. AT&T said it has “various business continuity measures in place to avoid disruptions to operations and will continue to provide our customers with the great service they expect.”