AT&T-Union; Talks Go On as Deadline Nears

With major issues still unresolved, negotiators for the nation’s largest long-distance telephone company and two unions tried to reach agreement on a new labor contract Saturday before a midnight strike deadline.

“They are going to talk as long as there are hours to talk. We expect these discussions will go right down to the wire,” said Herb Linnen, a spokesman for AT&T; Corp.

Linnen voiced hope that talks could continue after the deadline without a strike, even if unsettled issues remained on the table.

Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Communications Workers of America, said later Saturday that “nothing had been resolved in the key areas.”

“At this point, we do not have acceptable proposals from the company on major issues, including the company’s proposal to shift health costs to retirees,” he said. “That’s a major sticking point.”

Linnen said that if a strike is called, the company expects to continue its national and worldwide service uninterrupted, using managers as telephone operators.

He said efforts would be made to keep open AT&T;’s manufacturing plants in 17 states even though it probably would not be possible to run assembly lines at peak efficiency in all of them.

The two unions, the Communications Workers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, represent 101,000 of the company’s workers.