AT&T CEO Rakes in $29M Salary while Laying Off 12K Americans Since Tax Cut

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson raked in a more than $29 million salary last year, while nearly 12,000 American workers at the telecom multinational corporation have been laid off since the 2017 tax cut.

In financial filings released this week, Stephenson and other AT&T executives were revealed to have taken bonuses last year thanks to the corporation’s merger with Time Warner, a plan opposed by President Trump’s administration.

Last year, Stephenson earned $29.1 million, an increase from his year earlier salary of $28.7 million. Similarly, WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey earned a $16.55 million salary last year — a hefty bonus from his 2017 salary, which totaled more than $10 million.

The enormous salaries, thanks in part to the merger, come as AT&T has laid off nearly 12,000 American workers since the 2017 tax cut was enacted, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union.

AT&T enjoyed a $20 billion tax windfall from the 2017 tax cut.

CWA union President Chris Shelton said in a statement:

Randall Stephenson should be required to explain to his employees how after pocketing $29 million and benefiting significantly from the tax cut he lobbied for, he can turn around and slash jobs and cause stress and turmoil for hard-working people across America. AT&T promised thousands of new jobs and higher wages for workers before the tax bill passed, but instead workers’ lives are being upended by AT&T’s shameful corporate greed.

Much of the layoffs at AT&T have been the result of the conglomerate’s outsourcing and offshoring of American jobs to foreign workers and foreign countries.

Most recently, in Syracuse, New York, about 150 Americans will lose their jobs as AT&T closes a call center. In December 2018, the corporation closed call centers in Indianapolis, Indiana; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Appleton, Wisconsin, leaving hundreds and potentially thousands of Americans without jobs.

Simultaneously, the corporation has continued outsourcing Americans’ jobs to foreign countries like Mexico, India, and the Phillippines. Many AT&T employees online said they are in “layoff limbo” where they are unsure as to when the next round of layoffs will be and who they will impact.

Over the last three years, AT&T has sought to outsource more than 800 American jobs to H-1B foreign visa workers and has closed 44 call centers across the country in the last seven years, leaving 16,000 American workers out of work.

Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and allowed to stay for up to six years. There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News. More than 85,000 Americans a year potentially lose their jobs to foreign labor through the H-1B visa program.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.