More than 20,000 AT & T workers left work Friday night.

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Surprisingly, more than 20,000 AT & T trade unionists in the Southeast are on strike at midnight on Friday, officials said.

Members of the Communication Workers of America, including 4,000 in Georgia, accused this huge telecommunications company of unfair labor practices during negotiations for a new contract.

The previous agreement expired on August 3.

Since then, the talks have come to nothing because the company has ensured that an agreement could not be reached, said Richard Honeycutt, vice president of the union for the Southeast in a statement released Friday night. "Our discussions are deadlocked because it has become apparent that AT & T has not sent negotiators with the power to make decisions so we can progress to a new one." contract."

The Dallas-based company has annual sales of approximately $ 170 billion. It includes the remains of BellSouth, based in Atlanta, which for more than two decades has been the largest of the seven regional telephone companies.

Company officials said they were blinded and mystified by the call to strike.

"We are puzzled as to why union leaders are calling one when we are proposing conditions that would allow our employees, some of whom are getting a total payout of $ 121,000 to $ 134,000 – to be even better off," he said. said Jim Kiimberly, AT & T spokesperson.

Company officials insisted on being prepared for a walk-in outing. A few days before the expiry of the contract, AT & T officials said they would be ready to go on strike and that business operations would proceed smoothly, with managers, executives and underwriters -treators taking over.

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"We are ready to go on strike and, in the event of a work stoppage, we will continue to work hard to serve our customers," Kimberly said Friday night.

Union leaders scoffed at this idea, saying the company should prioritize work that delays new facilities and non-emergency maintenance.

The union's Southeast Region includes technicians, customer service representatives and others who "install, maintain and support" the company's fixed and Internet telephony services. The region includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Union officials said the main problems were job security and health care costs.

The workers could have remained at work without a contract, even though the negotiators had failed to reach an agreement. Last summer, more than 30,000 Verizon workers ratified a contract after working for one year without Verizon.