Pac Bell, Striking Union Make No Progress in Talks

No progress was reported Wednesday in informal talks in Oakland between Pacific Bell and representatives of 42,000 striking telephone workers in the fourth day of a work stoppage that also involves two regional telephone companies on the East Coast.

As the strike continued, tensions were high outside phone company offices. In one incident, a Communications Workers of America shop steward, Shari Underwood, was treated for cuts and bruises and released from a Van Nuys hospital Wednesday after being hit by a car while she picketed at a Pacific Bell building on Van Nuys Boulevard. Union officials said they did not know the identity of the driver of the car and police were unable to provide details. It was not known if the incident was related to the strike.

And in New York and Massachusetts on Wednesday, police arrested 22 striking telephone workers on suspicion of crimes ranging from disorderly conduct and resisting arrest to failing to obey a policeman’s order to move.

In Philadelphia, CWA officials said their negotiators were preparing a response to a modified contract offer by Bell Atlantic, one of the struck companies. Talks may resume today.

The two sides in the third strike, involving New York-based NYNEX Corp., which serves the Northeast, have not talked since last Friday.

At issue in all three strikes are wages and company proposals to require employees to pay for a greater share of health benefits.

The strikes, which began Sunday, involve 157,000 workers and affect phone customers in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Workers at three other regional phone companies are threatening to strike this weekend if contracts are not signed.

On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a resolution urging the public, union members and their families “to advise the local subsidiaries of Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and Pacific Telesis (the parent company of Pacific Bell) that they will defer payment of their telephone bills until the strikes are settled.”

The council for the 15 million-member AFL-CIO supported the non-payment strategy as a tactic to deal with the high degree of automation in the telecommunications industry.

But regardless of automation, company managers filling in for striking employees have been barely able to keep pace with the flood of directory-assistance calls.