Apr 1, 1998

While management at AllTel Corp., the Little Rock, Ark.-based telephone company, continues to stiff-arm CWA attempts to reach agreements on new contracts, the company is throwing around money like a drunken sailor.

In its latest move, AllTel in mid-March announced a deal to buy wireless telephone firm 360 Communications Co. of Chicago for $4 billion in stock, plus debt. AllTel already offers local, long distance and wireless telephone service and Internet access; the acquisition of 360 Communications and its 2.6 million customers would make it one of the largest cellular companies in the country.

CWA has been in lengthy negotiations with the company for new contracts covering some 1,100 workers in Ohio, Georgia and three other bargaining units for months, while management has been busy negotiating with various sports franchises to put the company’s name on stadiums in Jacksonville, Fla., and North Little Rock.

Mike Mills, writing in The Washington Post, reports the combined company would have annual revenue of about $4.5 billion and more than 5.6 million customers in 22 states.

“Though few in the Washington (D.C.) Region have heard of the company,” Mills writes, “AllTel has been aggressively expanding its business in rural and small-town areas of the Southeast and Midwest. AllTel has made more than 250 acquisitions since it was founded as Allied Telephone in 1954.”