AT&T workers in California and Nevada are on strike today and through the weekend as union members protest the status of contract negotiations.
The strike includes both AT&T and DIRECTV workers.
It's also the first time employees of the wireless division have walked off the job, affecting the company's retail stores.
Rob Coats is a union steward in Sacramento for the Communications Workers of America and was walking a picket line today.
He says the contract offer is diminished because the company wants employees to pay for a higher percentage of their health benefits.
"That won't equate," says Coats. "We, at this point, can barely afford our health benefits as they are and for them to have an increase as to that amount and then to only recieve an increase in wages at a specific amount that doesn't tally up, we still end up losing."
AT&T said in a statement the offers that are on the table are good, and the company finds it "baffling" why union leadership would call for a strike.
As many as 40,000 workers nationwide could potentially strike.
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