County to Feel the Full Impact of Pacific Bell Strike Today

A statewide strike against Pacific Bell delayed directory assistance calls and idled nearly 5,000 Orange County telephone workers Sunday as some managers spent the day learning how to be operators and pay-phone collectors.

Officials from the Communications Workers of America, Local 9510, posted pickets at phone company offices from Anaheim to Tustin on Sunday.

But both union leaders and telephone company managers said the strike’s real test would come this morning from 6 to 10 a.m. when most employees are supposed to report to work.

Monday “is the critical day and there’ll be 4,000 to 5,000 members out there picketing,” vowed Del McBryde president of CWA’s Local 9510.

McBryde warned that telephone customers will probably feel the widening impact of the strike today with delays in reaching operators, difficulty in placing operator-assisted calls and continuing problems with directory assistance.

But Pacific Bell officials promised business would be close to normal because so much of their system is fully automated.

“You can still call the world--if you know how to dial,” said Gary Cuccio, general manager of customer services in Orange County.

Pacific Bell serves 640,000 residential and 903,000 business customers in Orange County, covering every community except Seal Beach, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Seal Beach and Westminster.

During the strike, telephone repairs should occur within a day, just as they did before the job action, Cuccio said, but telephone installations may now take five or six days instead of the usual two or three.

Added John H. Adair, director of customer access services for Pacific Bell’s Southern California region, “if you want an installation in your residence, you’ll probably be in pretty good shape. But it’s not going to be quick.”

Though operators, repairmen and other crafts are on strike, Pacific Bell’s 955 managers in Orange County are trained to replace them and another 350 managers from the company’s Oakland office have flown in to help, company officials said. All are going to be working 12-hour shifts.

About 150 of them went to school Sunday in Tustin, Buena Park and Garden Grove, learning to work as telephone operators or collect coins from pay phones.

Sunday’s picketing was peaceful, both management and union representatives said, but the two parties differed sharply on how many locations were picketed. Cuccio cited pickets at eight spots, while union leader McBryde said his members went to 28.

The day’s only incident occured before dawn when Gary Fleer, a Pacific Bell manager at the company’s Garden Grove office on Euclid Street, said someone had tossed an egg at his car.

Cuccio said site managers early Sunday morning changed the locks at all 53 work sites in Orange County as a precaution to protect valuable switching equipment.

Cuccio said that the longer the strike continues “there’ll be a slight deterioration” in service. Instead of repairing a phone in one day, that job may take two days, he said. Also, he said, “if we get some major damage--a tropical storm or a large cable cut--it won’t go as fast. . . . No doubt about it, that’s a substantial work force we’ve lost.”

Sunday morning, callers who tried directory assistance lines repeatedly had difficulty getting through. Calls were answered with a recorded message that said, “We’re sorry. Because of a work stoppage the operator will be delayed in helping you.” Several callers reported that it took at least five minutes for an information operator to come on the line. But by late Sunday afternoon, some directory assistance calls got through in just under three minutes.

Both sides in the strike seemed to consider Sunday a practice run for today, a full-fledged work day, when customers would demand more operator assistance, more repairs, new installations, and help with bills.

Preparing for that event, a dozen Pacific Bell executives, some wearing shorts and sneakers, went to coin-collecting school.

They huddled around a partly disassembled pay telephone as instructor Bill Spencer advised them on the “rhythm” of opening up a phone, removing the coin box, emptying the money and closing the phone again.

But if they occasionally joked with Spencer about their new jobs, they turned serious when they talked of the strike.

“It’s unfortunate,” said Cecelia Annas, 43, the account executive. “I don’t think either side will win it.”

Added director of customer access services John Adair, who was supervising the class: “We’d rather not have a work stoppage. It’s really very unpleasant. We’re prepared to step up and try and maintain service as best we can--but we’d rather be doing other things on a Sunday.”

Out on the picket lines in Garden Grove, telephone operator Luann Nelson, 29, agreed, saying she was “not real thrilled” with the strike either.

A single mother with a 3-year-old daughter, Nelson said she was worried about paying bills during the strike, even though she supports her union’s objectives.

“This job is high stress,” she said. “The one good thing is the benefits, and now they’re trying to take them away.”

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