BY GREG McCARTAN
HARTFORD, Connecticut - "I am fighting to get a better
contract for me and my union brothers," said cable repair man
John Pawelec while walking the picket line in front of the
Southern New England Telecommunications Corporation (SNET)
depot here. "Everyone on my crew except for me is on the two-
tier scale, and it just isn't right."
Pawelec is one of the 6,300 members of Communication Workers of America (CWA) who set up spirited picket lines across Connecticut August 23.
He explained that workers hired after 1992 earn about $200 less a week and must pay 20 percent of their insurance costs, among other take-backs imposed on them at that time. In addition, there have been no yearly contractual raises since 1992 for any of SNET's union employees, putting them far behind telephone workers elsewhere in the country.
Union members are demanding parity, or at least steps toward it, with workers at major carriers. The company is offering a 10.9 percent pay increase over the next three years, which union members rejected as insufficient after six years with no raise.
"We're striking to get the younger people a future in this company. They are learning about unions now - maybe not in the best way - but we'll stay out as long as we have to," Pawelec said.
In addition to picketing the plant gates, members of CWA Local 1298 here are organizing "mobile pickets," following company trucks driven by bosses to jobs across the area. Strikers inform the customer of the strike issues and set up a picket line.
Local 1298 president Joe Albright said, "We have people working the same job, but with two different pay scales, two different medical payment plans, and two different work rules. It's ridiculous. SNET is the only phone company in the country that requires a co-pay on heath insurance."
Albright, a cable splicer, pointed to company practices such as providing huge salary increases for SNET bosses as a sore point for the union.
The annual salary of SNET's CEO, for example, went from $322,009 in 1991 to $948,269 in 1997. SNET has also squeezed productivity increases and higher profits from its operation since the take-back contract in 1992.
The SNET workers' strike began in the midst of the walkout by 34,000 telephone workers at US West, and less than two weeks after 73,000 CWA members won a strike at Bell Atlantic, pushing back that regional phone company's take-back demands.
Greg McCartan is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees in Boston.