Glenn Watts, 82; Led Phone Workers Union Through Bell Breakup

Glenn E. Watts, 82, the president of the Communications Workers of America who led the union through the breakup of the AT&T; Bell telephone monopoly, died Friday in Washington, D.C., of complications following surgery.

The North Carolina native attended Wilson Teachers College, and first went to work for the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. in 1941. He worked his way up through the union ranks from local president to national secretary-treasurer and then president from 1974 until retiring in 1985.

CWA President Morton Bahr said that Watts “presided over the Golden Age of workers in the Bell system. But when the big breakup came, Glenn had the vision to help guide us toward the many changes we would have to make in the new Information Age.”

A friend of President Carter, Watts joined him at a meeting with Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat as part of Carter’s Middle East peacemaking process. In 1985, Watts established a cultural center in Jerusalem that encourages understanding between Jewish and Arab members of Israel’s labor federation.