 Buy Photo Charles Daniels, president of Communications Workers of America Local 4123, kicks off the union's "Broken Promises Tour" on Monday at AT&T;'s call center on Michigan Avenue in Detroit. The Midwest has been particularly hard hit by closures and layoffs in recent years. AT&T closed a credit and collections call center at 105 E. Bethune in Detroit’s New Center in March. "In 2011, AT&T shuttered the call center I worked at for 11 years, despite our area manager's assurance that there was plenty of work to keep the center open," said Laheelah Hunter, who has worked at AT&T for almost 19 years and is joining the tour." I was lucky to find another job at AT&T here in Cleveland, but many of my co-workers uprooted lives and even divided their families to 'follow the work' to the Detroit center. A CWA analysis of the company’s second quarter said AT&T eliminated more than 7,000 jobs nationwide since January and has closed several call centers, including one in Detroit. On the shoulders of all its employees, we’ve made the company extremely profitable.” 
 
 In a December 2017 news release advocating in favor of Trump’s tax cuts, AT&T promised bonuses of $1,000 to 200,000 employees over the next year. Before the Republican tax plan passed, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson pledged that if the tax cut passed, the company would spend at least $1 billion in capital expenditures and be able to create "7,000 good jobs for the middle class." Instead, AT&T has laid off an estimated 7,000 workers since that announcement was issued, according to the Communication Workers of America union. “Contrary to inaccurate statements by the CWA, AT&T said nothing … promising that the company itself would create any number of jobs.” 
 
 Richter said the company has hired 8,000 in the U.S. this year and are hiring thousands more. In April 2018, the CWA voted to authorize a strike for the 14,000 workers in the midwest and national workers in AT&T’s Legacy Unit as the union’s negotiations for contract renewals remain at a standstill. “For us, it’s about jobs and job security, but they’ve made no commitment.” 
 
 bnoble@detroitnews.com 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://detne.ws/2OMxCQD “At the same time, technology improvements are driving higher efficiencies and there are some areas where demand for our legacy services continues to decline, and we must sometimes adjust our workforce in some of those areas.
– Employees are calling out AT&T for what they say are lost jobs amid fat profits. Communication Workers of America members say AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson promised to spend at least $1 billion on capital projects that would create 7,000 jobs if the Republican tax plan passed, reports the Detroit News. However, a CWA analysis says the company has eliminated more than 7,000 jobs nationwide since January, when the plan went into effect. Four call centers closed this year, bringing the total over seven years to 44, the Guardian reports, noting much of the work is being outsourced to countries like India and Mexico, where workers can earn less than $2 an hour. At the same time, AT&T appears to be doing just fine. The company reported $10 billion in profit in the first six months of the year, per the Guardian, and spent $419 million on stock buybacks in the second quarter, bringing its total spent in that category to roughly $16.5 billion since 2013. "This is not a poor company," says an employee at a Wisconsin call center that she says is down to 30 employees from 500 a decade ago. "We've made the company extremely profitable" but "they're liquidating us." AT&T acknowledges "there are some areas where demand for our legacy services continues to decline." Claiming it continues to invest in middle-class careers, however, the company says it's hired 8,000 US workers this year, and 87,000 over three years.