Avaya

Avaya - End of Variable Workforce Agreement

11/16/2004

Yesterday CWA and IBEW met with Avaya VP Francis Scricco and Labor Relations VP Tom Burk in an effort to extend the Variable Workforce agreement. The Company was not interested in any extension except on their terms, which would include laying off core employees while keeping variable employees. Neither Union could agree to that. Therefore, per the contract, the Variable workforce agreement will expire on December 1, 2004. Any agreements or committees tied to the VWF language will also expire. The Company also told us that, with the expiration of the VWF agreement, they can now “reduce capacity” with a surplus. They indicated the surplus number was 350 to 400 core technicians.

Apparently Avaya has decided to follow in the footsteps of Lucent and AT&T and eliminate the unionized workforce. Since that is the route they are taking, it should motivate us to do whatever we can to ensure Avaya’s strategy fails. Ever since Avaya spun off from Lucent, the Union has tried to help make them successful, and we had a vested interest in doing that; however, we can no longer cooperate if their success means our demise. There should be no joint efforts to help Avaya going forward unless contractually required. It is up to you to get the message to Avaya.

-- AVAYA’s Greed Exceeds its Need—MOBILIZE—MOBILIZE—MOBILIZE --

In Unity,

Gerald W. Souder
CWA Representative