Pact Eludes Pacific Bell and Union : CWA Official Sees 90% Change of Strike by 41,000 in State

Pacific Bell and negotiators for the union representing more than 41,000 of the phone company’s workers in California said they made little progress in contract talks late Saturday, increasing the likelihood of a strike that was set to begin at midnight.

“I’d say there is a 90% chance of a strike and 10% there could be a settlement,” Ellyn Edwards, a spokesman for the Communications Workers of America, said Saturday. “The strike appears to be imminent at 12 midnight.”

Minor Effect Seen

Pacific Bell spokesman Lissa Zanville said a strike would slow down only a few of its services. Telephone installation, directory assistance, billing and calls requiring an operator’s help could take a little longer than usual, she said.

Most basic services, such as long distance and local phone calls, were expected to continue unhampered, however.

The CWA represents a cross section of Pacific Bell’s employees, including operators, cable-splicers and telephone installers.

In an attempt to minimize any inconvenience that a strike could impose, the company has instructed some of its 17,000 non-union managers to be available this weekend in case they are needed to replace employees working the picket line.

“We do have managers who are standing by to sit in as operators and in those jobs that would require immediate replacements,” said Charlene Baldwin, another Pacific Bell spokesman.

Divided on Issues

Union and company officials meeting in Oakland had made little headway Saturday on critical issues on which they disagreed, including health care benefits and pay raises, Edwards said.

“The company is sticking tight with a cavalier attitude that they are not going to budge,” said Edwards.

Pacific Bell declined to comment on the negotiations.

The union is asking for expanded medical benefits but Pacific Bell is asking workers to share more of its health care costs. And the CWA has requested a pay raise that exceeds the company’s 5% proposal that would be spread over three years.

Some union members and their families spent Saturday afternoon putting together placards and posters for use on the picket line.

“We anticipate that at 12 midnight we need to have those out there at the job locations,” Edwards said.

The CWA has said repeatedly that it is opposed to extending the existing contract.

“We have never extended a contract in the Bell system,” said Edwards. “There is always that chance but it doesn’t look like a good chance.”

The union’s international president had not given his approval to a strike by members late Saturday afternoon but was expected to make a decision in the early evening. If he does not give the nod, a strike by local chapters of the CWA would be considered a wildcat action.

The CWA is carrying on negotiations around the country on four separate contracts, all of which were set to expire last midnight. Besides Pacific Bell, the phone companies serving the Southeast, New England and a few Western states including Utah and Colorado were negotiating with the union.

The last union action against Pacific Bell was a 22-day, nationwide strike in 1983 against the Bell System, which still owned the California company.

Pacific Bell had net profit of $1.23 billion on revenue of $8.75 billion last year. It provides telephone service for 9.1 million customers in California, all but 903,000 of them residential. It has 62,000 employees.