CWA AND US WEST STILL DEALING WITH EFFECTS OF DEREGULATION
The Communications Workers of America (CWA), claiming victory Monday at the end of its 15-day strike against US West, accused the company of fostering bitter negotiations and using union- busting tactics in talks that it characterized as unusually bitter for a Baby Bell.
The strike, which ended late Sunday with the announcement of a tentative agreement, idled 32,000 union phone workers in 13 states, including Minnesota, where US West has about 4,600 CWA union workers among its 6,200 employees statewide.
The CWA seemed the clear winner in the struggle, and Monday claimed to have won several important battles, including limits on what it called excessive overtime work, modifications to a controversial pay-for-performance plan, and the scrapping of a health plan that would have been more costly for and given fewer choices to its members. Denver-based US West, which provides most local phone service in the Twin Cities, avoided saying who won the strike. While the company said the negotiations were very intense," it took a conciliatory tone and did not offer any accusations of its own.
At a Denver news briefing Monday, union negotiator and CWA Vice President Sue Pisha said she expects that 60 to 70 percent of the union's US West employees will vote in favor of ratifying the tentative agreement. [CWA Vice President Sue] Pisha said the agree ment is "very much in line" with those the CWA has signed with other telephone companies. US West said some aspects of the proposed contract are better than previous CWA contracts. "We believe that the tentative agreement rep- resents a 'best' in the industry in the wage and benefits package said Mary Hisley, a US West spokeswoman. [The contract includes a voluntary pay-for- performance program to be jointly designed by the company and union, overtime capped at 16 hours a week in January 1999 and reducing to 8 hours by January 2001, a reduction from two to one free medical plan per market to be jointly reviewed by the company and union, a wage increase of 10.9 percent over three years and pension increases of 21 percent over three