New York-New England Phone Workers OK Contract Offer

Negotiators for 38,000 unionized workers agreed tentatively on a contract with NYNEX Corp. on Monday and called off an eight-day-old strike against its New York and New England telephone company subsidiaries, officials said.

The Communication Workers of America instructed its members to return to work as of midnight, the union and NYNEX said in a joint statement issued after what they called “intensive bargaining” over the weekend and on Monday.

NYNEX was the last of the seven regional Bell phone companies to reach a tentative settlement with its major unions. The so-called “Baby Bells” bargained with unions separately this year, for the first time since they were formed from the 1984 breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.

The NYNEX settlement left 380 workers striking Ameritech Publishing Inc.’s Ohio operations the only Baby Bell employees not working or going back to work.

“We have a verbal agreement with the CWA,” said Jim Crosson at New York Telephone Co. “That agreement is pending review by (union) local officials” he said, and ratification by union members.

Neither Crosson nor CWA spokeswoman Clara Allen would talk about the terms of the tentative three-year settlement. The joint statement said that it reflected the outcome of “a tough bargaining process.”

No date had yet been set for a ratification vote, Allen said.

About 37,000 union members in New York and 1,000 in New England struck after their contract expired Aug. 9. Most New England Telephone Co. workers belong to another union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which settled that weekend.