Picketing Gets Under Way as Talks Break Down in AT&T; Strike

Negotiators for striking telephone workers broke off formal contract talks with the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. on Sunday as pickets went up outside AT&T; facilities across the country.

Leaders of the Communications Workers of America, which represents 155,000 operators, installers and repairmen, said the giant long-distance firm was offering an 8% pay increase over three years to employees but at the same time sought “unwarranted” rollbacks in benefits and job security provisions.

“We will not engage in concessionary bargaining with a company that is healthy, that is making enormous profits . . . and is the growth company of the future,” CWA President Morton Bahr said. He said negotiators for both sides in the strike, which began early Sunday, met informally during the morning but reached an impasse and adjourned indefinitely. However, he said union representatives would keep in touch with their company counterparts--by phone.

Meanwhile, AT&T; spokesman Edith Herman said the firm had reached agreement on a tentative three-year contract with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the second largest AT&T; union that represents 41,000 workers.

Bahr, however, said that IBEW officials had assured him that no such agreement had been reached. He said the IBEW was required by its bylaws to submit the company’s latest contract offer to its members for a vote, but that IBEW leaders had pledged to recommend against ratification.

Officials of the IBEW, most of whose members work at AT&T-owned; phone and equipment factories, could not be reached for comment.

Even though its contract with the company expired Sunday morning at the same time as that of the CWA, the IBEW has not called a strike. Bahr said he expects IBEW members to honor CWA picket lines at facilities where both unions represent workers.

In past strikes against AT&T;, the two unions have walked off the job together.

Herman said the strike had little effect on most long-distance service operations, which are automated. However, she acknowledged that there were some delays in reaching operators for services such as making credit-card, collect or person-to-person calls.

The strike has had little effect on local phone service because most local phone companies were severed from AT&T; in 1984.