Front Page || Main Index || Corpus Christi News || Business || Texas || Sports || Entertainment || Selena
Wednesday, Aug. 12, 1998
Bell Atlantic workers end strike
Phone company, employees' union reach agreement on new contract
By KEVIN GALVIN
Associated PressWASHINGTON -- Striking Bell Atlantic Corp. employees began returning to work Tuesday after the company and its biggest union reached agreement on a two-year contract that would increase job security and limit forced overtime.
Communications Workers of America President Morton Bahr touted the access the deal granted union workers to company subsidiaries developing fast-growing technologies. Many of those units now are staffed by nonunion contract workers.
``This settlement guarantees that the growth jobs of the future will be done by CWA members,'' Bahr said, adding that the deal also benefited the company. ``Competition in this field is going to be based on quality service for customers.''
The pact, which union officials predicted members would ratify within a month, ended a walkout by some 73,000 telephone workers that began after their contract expired at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
The strike affected workers in 13 Eastern states and the District of Columbia. It inconvenienced some customers, but the company said most service was unaffected as more than 23,000 managers working 12-hour shifts filled in for striking union members. Bahr said automation of much of the system means it takes more than a few days for a strike to really hurt operations.
Don Sacco, Bell Atlantic's executive vice president for human resources, said the agreement would give the company flexibility while being fair to both sides and to customers.
``It was a complex negotiation. We negotiated hard,'' Sacco said. Reaching a settlement just two days after the old contract expired was ``not too bad,'' he said.
Bahr noted that the traditional labor-management issues of wages, pensions or benefits ``were settled months ago.''
``This strike was simply about creating good American jobs in the 21st century,'' he said.
Although workers took to the picket lines, the talks between the company and the union never broke down, indicating a solution was never far from sight.
The company also was negotiating with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, most of whom had agreed to continue working after their contract expired.
Bahr said the CWA, in contrast, took a ``no contract, no work'' stand because past efforts to accommodate the company had led to protracted haggling over contracts. He said the contract wouldn't have been as strong as it was without the ``added leverage'' of the strike.
Bahr said the union agreed to a two-year settlement, instead of a three-year pact, at the request of company CEO Ivan Seidenberg. He also said the union agreed to exempt Bell Atlantic Mobile from the pact, but indicated the union would seek access to that division in the future.
Seidenberg is just now gaining consolidating control of the company, which is a product of a merger with NYNEX. Last month, Bell Atlantic announced plans to merge with another major local phone company, GTE.
Key elements of the agreement prohibit the company from layoffs, forced transfers or job downgrades during the two years. Bell Atlantic would be barred from new subcontracting arrangements and the number of subcontracting positions would be frozen at the current level, 0.5 percent of the work force.
In one example of the company opening subsidiaries to the union, the Bell Atlantic Plus Center in Hampton, Va., would be closed Oct. 1, with the work of 700 temporary employees given to union employees by March 30.
``We'll be phasing out contractors in that work and giving it back to our union employees,'' Sacco said. ``There will be some contract jobs that go away.''
Peter Cantucci, a union vice president who helped lead negotiations in the Washington area, said workers frequently were forced to work six days a week for months at a time.
Under the new contact, workers can't be forced to work back-to-back six-day weeks. For most of the year, they can refuse to work more than 10 hours of overtime in a week.
``This will certainly add to the quality of life for people and reduce a great deal of stress,'' Cantucci said.Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web