Technology Limits Strikers’ Clout

Striking telephone workers face a critical problem in their effort to win a better contract: The modern phone network is so automated that the absence of rank-and-file workers cannot shut it down.

Customers seeking installations, repairs and operator assistance will face delays, and a long strike could create problems as a maintenance backlog takes its toll. But for most purposes, the phone system should function normally for at least a month and possibly much longer as management personnel perform some key tasks.

Less Need for Human Touch

“I don’t think phone users will ever notice,” said Walter Bolter, director of the Bethesda Research Institute. “Maybe large customers who need maintenance will have problems, but it won’t be like a garbage strike.”

Although the basic national telephone dialing system has been automated since the early 1960s, computer-related technologies introduced in the past decade have made the system even less dependent on people.

One key change has taken place in the switching centers, which route calls around the network. As computerized switches have replaced mechanical ones, hooking up a new telephone line has become a matter of a few strokes on a keyboard. And a whole series of maintenance functions once performed by union employees has been eliminated.

Similarly, the copper wires that traditionally carried most telephone calls required a lot of on-site maintenance. But those wires have increasingly been replaced by glass cables, which use lasers to transmit signals. These “fiber optic” links carry many more calls and require less on-site attention.

Richard Solomon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s communications policy program said the transition to so-called digital technology, in which phone conversations are converted to the computer’s language of zeros and ones for transmission, also has affected the demand for workers. “As the network becomes all-digital, it’s much easier to do computer maintenance,” he said. “It’s not necessarily cheaper, but it’s much less labor-intensive.”

Even traditionally labor-heavy services such as directory assistance and billing now use fewer people than they once did. Computer-equipped operators now find a number in seconds, and the number is read out by a synthesized voice while the operator takes another call. The telephone companies’ enormous billing and order systems are also fully computerized.

Effect of Competition

Finally, the introduction of competition in the phone business means that most customers do not rely on the telephone company for their phones, or even for the wire inside their homes or offices. Businesses with large phone systems can call on non-union maintenance workers to fix most problems.

All of this means that Pacific Bell has been able to reduce the number of employees per 10,000 telephone lines from 73 as of 1983 to 49 now.