Major Issues Remain for AT&T;, Unions : Labor: The company says it has contingency plans in case there is a strike.
WASHINGTON — American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and its unions, working past a strike deadline, will resume contract talks today after nonstop negotiations Monday failed to bring a settlement.
Job security, wages and pensions were the issues in the talks between AT&T; and the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Both sides were working past a strike deadline to try to avert a nationwide walkout by about 127,000 employees.
CWA President Morton Bahr said in a statement late Monday that 28 issues of dispute remain between the two unions and AT&T.; “Most of these are major issues, including several very key issues in the area of employment security,†Bahr said. He also said he is “more pessimistic today about achieving a settlement in the near term than I was on Saturday.â€
CWA and IBEW members had given their negotiators authority to call a strike if no contract was reached by the deadline of midnight Saturday. But since progress was being made, the two sides decided to continue negotiations and work past the deadline.
The talks are scheduled to resume this morning. AT&T;, the nation’s biggest long-distance provider, said it had contingency plans to run its highly automated telecommunications network in case of a strike by using active and retired management and hiring temporary workers.
CWA officials said they too had contingency plans to implement with or without a strike, including an “electronic picket lineâ€--a union-led campaign to urge an international boycott of AT&T; services.
They did not disclose any other possible strike actions.
A new contract was reached three years ago without a strike, but in 1986 the CWA struck for 26 days before reaching an agreement.
Talks on a new three-year contract began March 30, with the CWA, representing 100,000 workers, and the IBEW, representing 27,000 workers, seeking better job security, wages and pensions.
Perhaps the single biggest issue is job security.
Since the Bell system was dismantled by court order in 1984, AT&T; has cut 133,000 union jobs.
It says it needs work force flexibility in order to profit in the increasingly competitive telecommunications marketplace.
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