I work for SBC and I have to say from the perspective of a person on the inside SBC is an evil company. In fact I've been working really hard on trying to launch my own business and get out of the company as fast as I can.
A few things I've observed since I've worked for SBC (they bought out Ameritech a few years ago)
1. Summer of 2004 SBC negotiated very badly with their union employees. The end result was a lot of wasted money and thousands of management employees (non union) worked for free to cover the striking union workers.
2. Fast forward a couple of months, SBC announces to the company that they will need to trim the management employee staff. It will begin this year when the company will outsource a cetain percentage of full time employees in exchange for contractors. ( a really nice way to thank all the employees who worked 12-16 hour shifts to cover the striking union workers)
3. Company bonuses and medical benefits have been reduced by quite a bit since SBC took over despite the company showing higher profits than previous years.
4. Upper management has put tremendous pressure on employees to sell SBC products to their friends and families. In my opinion this is a total slap in the face, considering that the company has a sales department in place. Why should programmers, project managers, networking techs, etc.. need to play the role of salesmen.
5. The company is now urging employees to contribute money to help lobbyists for SBC. Although its not mandatory its really disturbing that a billion dollar company needs its workers to contribute money to its political agendas.