BY BECKY ELLIS
ST. PAUL, Minnesota - Some 34,000 members of the
Communication Workers of America (CWA) began returning to work
August 31 after a two-week strike against US West. Discussions
began immediately about the terms of the tentative agreement
with the phone giant, which union negotiators reached late the
night before.
Two of the most vicious proposals by the company were pushed back through the determination of the strikers and the public support that was beginning to develop for their fight. The massive amounts of mandatory overtime that the company has imposed over the past couple of years will be reduced to a maximum of eight hours a week by the end of the three-year contract. Many technicians have been working 70-hour weeks, and some up to 100 hours. Repair operators have been working between 50 and 60 hours a week.
Premium pay for overtime will remain in place. The company had pushed for doing away with the current time-and-a-half rate for over eight hours in a day and double-time rate for over 49 hours in a week.
The company's "pay for performance" plan, a kind of piece work system that the bosses wanted to make mandatory, will be voluntary for current workers, transfers, and new hires. The company agreed not to implement the plan until at least July 1999. A similar plan was introduced into the contract three years ago for sales consultants.
The company was able to get a new health-care plan that may require some workers to pay between $800 and $1,000 a year to remain with their current doctors. Management now will also have the right to secretly monitor workers' customer calls, which was not allowed under the expired contract.
Pay raises totaling about 11 percent over three years, an increase in pensions and retirement fund contributions, and a $500 signing bonus are also included in the agreement. CWA members will be voting on the proposed contract sometime after Labor Day.
Workers face down company threats
During the second week of the strike, the company announced
it was canceling health benefits for the strikers. Each striker
was sent a letter from the company complaining that union
negotiators were stalling. "If I were a picketer, I would be
extremely upset that I had spent hours walking the picket line,
while at the same time my union reps at the bargaining table
were satisfied with meeting only 65 minutes a week," the bosses
said. These scare tactics didn't work. Very few workers crossed
the picket line.
US West spokespeople tried to blame supposed vandalism by strikers for the death of a baby in Colorado August 27. The child's parents were unable to dial the emergency number 911. US West spokesman David Beigie said, "We've been warning the community that acts of vandalism could result in tragedy."
Carla West, spokeswoman for Denver's CWA local 7777 said, "We did notify the company just Wednesday [August 26] that in the event of an emergency, such as a 911 outage, the company could contact us and we would dispatch people to do repairs on any emergency services." It was determined that the 911 service had been disabled when a construction crew had cut a cable.
Rallies and mass pickets boosted morale in many cities throughout the two-week strike. At a rally in Des Moines August 26, the president of CWA Local 7102, Sarah Downing, noted, "The strike is solid. All the trainees are out with us, including one who was only on the job three days." She said support had come from Teamsters at UPS, postal workers, and locals of the United Steelworks of America at Bridgestone/Firestone and Titan Tire. The Titan workers have been on strike since May 1.
In Seattle, strikers rallied August 29 at the CWA Local 7800 hall. Workers from other unions including the Service Employees International Union, Teamsters, International Longshore Workers Union, United Transportation Union, and International Association of Machinists came to express their support for the strikers. The rally was followed by a march of 800. Strikers were wearing t-shirts that said "Life's Bitter Here," mocking the company's "Life's Better Here" slogan.
This reporter, a repair operator in St. Paul returned to the phones not looking forward to hearing from customers who have been told their service will be delayed. But I and my co- workers found that many customers were very glad to talk to the returning strikers - explaining in many cases they were glad to be patient because they supported the strike.
Workers debate contract offer
The tentative contract is a big topic of discussion at
work. Many repairs operators in St. Paul are unhappy with what
they know about the deal. Keith Baker, who has worked for US
West for a year, said, "We got nothing. While the overtime
might get better for techs who work so many hours, in this
department we work 8 to 10 hours of overtime a week, so it
won't be better for us."
One young woman who asked that her name not be used was concerned about the health care proposal. "I'm in no position to start changing doctors and can't afford the extra $900 this might cost me," she said. "We should go back out on strike!"
Judy Nelson, who has worked for the company many years, didn't like coming back to work without knowing exactly what the new contract will say. "I'm very unhappy about changes in the health care. And although the pay for performance will be voluntary, some will choose to do it and race through calls, and the rest of us will have to wipe up the mess it will create."
In Des Moines, Greg Greenwood, 26, who has worked in repairs for seven years and is a third-generation phone company worker, was pleased with many parts of the offer, but said, "I hope the contract gets defeated because of the pay for performance. It is supposed to be voluntary, but if they get a foothold, they'll try to make it mandatory and try to make the new people do it."
To Bob Peters, a shop steward in Des Moines and a veteran of the strike against Bridgestone/Firestone, the two most important achievements of the strike were pushing back the demands for eliminating premium pay for overtime and winning union recognition for a new US West center in Pocatello, Idaho.
Becky Ellis is a member of CWA Local 7201. Lieff Gutthiudaschmitt in Seattle and Tim Mailhot and Maggie Trowe in Des Moines contributed to this article.