Two former AT&T employees sue the carrier claiming discrimination
AT&T used a relocation mandate to hide a goal of replacing older workers with younger ones claims lawsuits.
AT&T is being sued by two former employees claiming age discrimination and more. | Image by PhoneArena
AT&T's John Stankey has the longest current tenure of the three CEOs running the "Big 3" having been in his current position since July 2020. Srini Gopalan became CEO of T-Mobile on November 1, 2025 and Dan Schulman took over the CEO office at Verizon on October 6, 2025.
AT&T is being taken to court by a pair of former employees citing age discrimination
The company Stankey runs, AT&T, is the defendant in a pair of lawsuits with one filed in North Carolina and the other in New Jersey in December and April respectively. Both suits were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and both filings included a statement made by Stankey in 2023 when he said that the carrier needed a younger workforce.
Both plaintiffs submitted their filings and sued not long after they left AT&T. In 2023, the company, along with other big firms, started requesting that managers return to work in their offices following the end of the COVID pandemic. AT&T requested that 60,000 managers return to work at nine hub locations in the U.S.
9,000 managers were told to relocate or lose their jobs
Stankey said that 9,000 managers would have to make a decision to either relocate or lose their jobs. One of these managers was Lorraine Lopez, a 30-year veteran of the carrier. She filed her complaint with a New Jersey court in April stating that she was "surplussed" by AT&T.
She also included in her complaint a quote she attributed to John Stankey from a livestream that she says was sent throughout the company. In that livestream, she recalled Stankey as pointing out that the demographic profile of AT&T's workers does not meet the profile of the U.S. population or AT&T's customer base. He made it clear that AT&T needed to have younger people working for the company.
An AT&T spokesman called the statement "baseless" in a statement, saying that the carrier would defend itself in court. As of yesterday morning, AT&T had yet to respond with a court filing of its own.
Lawsuit accuses AT&T of using the relocate mandate to reduce the age of the workforce
The major point of Lopez's suit against AT&T is that the relocation order from Stankey was a smokescreen put up by AT&T as a way to replace its older workers with younger ones. This could lead to AT&T losing to the plaintiffs' charge of age discrimination against the telecom giant.
Statements made by AT&T CEO John Stankey are at the center of a couple of lawsuits against the telecom giant.| Image by AT&T
Lopez' filing also claimed that "AT&T at the highest level openly expressed hostility towards its older employees and its preference for younger employees." She also noted that she was unnecessarily relocated from an office in New Jersey to a hub in Atlanta, pointing out that her job duties did not require her to be in the new office.
Former employee says AT&T discriminated against her age, gender, and disability
An AT&T spokesperson said of Lopez' claims, "This employee was not a victim of discrimination; she chose to leave her job because she did not want to relocate with the rest of her team." Older people, of course, have a harder job picking up their lives and moving to a new location as opposed to younger employees who might not feel grounded in a certain location.
The North Carolina case, filed by former AT&T employee Kimberly Wall, is currently in mediation. She claims that the carrier discriminated against her age, gender, and disability when it refused to agree to her request to continue working remotely despite the recommendation of her doctor.
In response to concerns that AT&T was losing older workers, CEO Stankey reportedly said, "We need young people." Many AT&T employees believe that the RTO (Return to Office) and relocation orders were attempts to reduce the telecom firm's head count, mostly of longtime and older employees.
In a memo dated August 2025, Stankey said that he was moving AT&T from a place of "loyalty, tenure, and conformance with the associated compensation," to "a more market-based culture — focused on rewarding capability, contribution, and commitment."
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