Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 23, 1995 TAG: 9509240003
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The union and the regional telephone company will attempt to resolve differences about job security, wages and retiree health care - areas that have kept the two sides apart since their contract expired Aug. 5.
Bell Atlantic spokesman Paul Miller said the company would bring a new proposal - its fourth - to today's bargaining session at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington. The new proposal comes in part from informal discussions the company has had with union officials, Miller said.
"Rest assured, it's probably an improvement as far as [the union] is concerned," Miller said.
If the proposal doesn't provide workers job security and step back from a demand that retirees pay a portion of their health care premiums, it's not going to be acceptable, said Larry Akers, president of CWA Local 2204, which represents 875 Bell Atlantic workers between Roanoke and Cumberland Gap. Akers said his membership is more united behind those issues now than when contract talks began.
Bell Atlantic provides telephone service to 12 million customers in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. The company has 37,000 people working under the CWA contract. That includes 6,650 in Virginia, but, because of the state's "right-to-work" law, not all of them are union members.
Previously, the company had paid all of the health-care premiums for its retirees. It angered the union by proposing under the new contract that those who retired after 1989 pay a small portion of the premium for themselves and their dependents beginning next year.
Bell Atlantic said it is among only 8 percent of American companies that cover all retiree health costs and among only 42 percent of all U.S. companies that provide any retiree health coverage. The cost of health care for its 50,000 retirees has risen from $54 million in 1990 to $107 million last year, the company said.
Job security is a critical issue for the union because of yearly job cuts at Bell Atlantic and the company's move through subsidiaries into nontraditional lines of business, such as cable television services and video on demand.
A proposal by Bell Atlantic that the company be allowed unlimited rights to assign work to outside contractors is one reason it hasn't reached a settlement with the union, said the CWA's Washington spokesman Jeff Miller.
And Akers pointed out that the company continues to farm out work even as talks with his union continue. Bell Atlantic notified the union in a Sept.15 letter that on Oct.1 it would begin using contract labor in Roanoke, the New River Valley and Southwest Virginia to perform technical and splicing work. The company said the action would not result in any layoffs or place union members in part-time jobs.
A third issue has been Bell Atlantic's offer of pay increases that was lower than what other regional phone companies offered union members.
"We need to bring our pay and benefits into line with our competition," Bell Atlantic spokesman Paul Miller said. He cited Bell Atlantic's recent loss to the CFW Telephone Co. of a contract to provide operator services to AT&T in three states and the District of Columbia as an example of what can happen to a company when it's not competitive.
by CNB