THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 17, 1997 TAG: 9701170068
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 39 lines
AT&T Corp. said Thursday that it plans to close its downtown Norfolk operator-service center April 19. The center, which has about 125 employees, is one of seven such centers in the United States slated to be shut down by the long-distance phone giant in April.
AT&T notified employees of the Norfolk center about the planned closings Thursday morning.
``It was really shocking,'' said Louie Scinaldi, president of Communications Workers of America Local 2202. ``I'm still sick over it.''
Scinaldi said he rushed to the center on Bute Street, arriving five minutes after the notice was given. ``When I walked in, people were in tears,'' he said. AT&T initially planned to allow the operators to unplug from their boards for 15 minutes to recover from theannouncement, Scinaldi said, then stretched the time-out to a half-hour.
Many of the Norfolk operators have worked there more than 20 years.
Ritch Blasi, an AT&T spokesman, said that besides Norfolk, other centers to be closed are in Oklahoma City; Albany, N.Y.; Corpus Christi, Texas; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Miami, and Cincinnati. He said AT&T will have 39 operator centers after the closings, with the closest to Hampton Roads being in Richmond.
He said AT&T needs fewer centers because competitors have siphoned away its long-distance market share and the company is increasingly automating functions once performed exclusively by operators.
The latest shutdowns are part of a three-year plan announced early last year to cut 17,000 jobs, Blasi said. With the latest closings, he said, AT&T will have eliminated about 8,000 positions. He said about 170 workers at the seven facilities, including 26 in Norfolk, are eligible for retirement. AT&T will provide severance pay of up to two years, he added.
The CWA's Scinaldi said union officials will try to convince AT&T to reverse its decision. In the meantime, he said the AFL-CIO provides a counseling program.