Two current lawsuits declare AT&T used its relocation coverage to pressure out older staff, with CEO John Stankey favoring youthful staff through the rollout.
The lawsuits, one filed in North Carolina in December and one other in New Jersey in April, quote CEO John Stankey as saying in 2023 that AT&T wanted a youthful workforce. Each plaintiffs filed circumstances with the US Equal Employment Alternative Fee shortly after leaving the corporate and stated they had been not too long ago notified of their proper to sue, which they did inside 90 days of their respective notices.
In 2023, as different large corporations had been strengthening return-to-office mandates, the telecom large stated it was calling again some 60,000 managers to the workplace at nine hub locations throughout the US. Stankey stated on the time that about 9,000 managers would face the choice to relocate or lose their jobs.
The April criticism by former director Lorraine Lopez, who stated she labored for 30 years on the telecom large earlier than she was “surplussed” at age 58, references remarks she remembers Stankey made throughout a livestreamed companywide assembly on July 26, 2023, in regards to the deliberate relocation initiative.
“We have now a mathematical subject that we now have to cope with in our firm,” Stankey is quoted as saying. “The profile of our workforce doesn’t match the profile of the inhabitants of america and the shopper base, each when it comes to matching it demographically and matching it from an age perspective. We’d like youthful individuals working at this firm.”
He added: “It is onerous to say goodbye to that which we all know and actually well-trained individuals who’ve had numerous expertise. It may be emotional. Nevertheless it’s additionally an incredible alternative for us.”
An AT&T spokesperson stated in an announcement that the lawsuit was “baseless” and the corporate would defend itself in court docket. As of Wednesday morning, AT&T had not but responded in court docket filings.
Lopez’s criticism alleges that “AT&T on the highest degree brazenly expressed hostility in the direction of its older staff and its choice for youthful staff.” It argues that Lopez’s reassignment from a New Jersey workplace to an Atlanta hub was pointless, and her job duties didn’t require her to be in that workplace.
“This worker was not a sufferer of discrimination; she selected to go away her job as a result of she didn’t wish to relocate with the remainder of her staff,” the spokesperson stated within the assertion.
The North Carolina case filed by former worker Kimberly Wall, which is in mediation, stated that AT&T discriminated in opposition to her on the idea of age, gender, and incapacity when it denied her requests in 2023 to proceed working remotely at her physician’s advice. The criticism additionally alleged that Stankey stated, “We’d like younger individuals,” in response to the issues about shedding older staff.
Stankey’s July 2023 age-related feedback cited within the lawsuits are in step with what greater than half a dozen AT&T staff beforehand advised Enterprise Insider in regards to the assembly. A number of of these staff stated that city halls held earlier than that assembly had been sometimes recorded and distributed on the company intranet, however this one was not launched.
His remarks — and others like them within the following months and years — fueled worker issues that the RTO and relocation mandates had been additionally an effort to cut back head rely, particularly amongst longtime staff.
Just a little over a yr after the preliminary relocation mandate, AT&T instituted a five-day in-office requirement, changing the earlier hybrid mannequin.
Stankey later stated in an August 2025 memo that the corporate was transitioning away from a tradition of “loyalty, tenure, and conformance with the related compensation,” to “a extra market-based tradition — centered on rewarding functionality, contribution, and dedication.”
In later feedback in regards to the memo, Stankey advised CNBC he goals to be clear about how he runs the company. He additionally advised The Wall Road Journal that he had been too gradual to deal with the “culture evolution” AT&T wanted.
Inner numbers beforehand obtained by Enterprise Insider confirmed that about half of the 318 managerial staff in a single division who acquired notification to maneuver through the first wave in 2023 declined and left the corporate.
Extra broadly, AT&T employed greater than 160,000 staff in the beginning of 2023, based on its annual report. It began this yr with about 133,000.
