ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 10, 1996 TAG: 9602120018
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
AVERTING A MIDNIGHT STRIKE, hourly workers at the fiber-optics company approved a new contract giving them better medical benefits and three years of raises.
Hourly employees at a Roanoke fiber-optics company adopted a contract Friday that will provide raises and what they see as improved health insurance.
The 145 production workers at Alcatel Telecommunications Cable North America were set to strike at midnight Friday if the contract was rejected, said David Terry, president of Local 164 of the International Union of Electrical Workers.
After workers cast ballots in a Salem union hall, however, they cheered the passage of the three-year contract, and Terry told the night shift to hustle back to work.
Terry called the contract the best of three he has helped negotiate since Alcatel bought the fiber business from ITT Electro-Optical Products Division in 1987.
A worker at the contract voting session said Alcatel's business has grown to the point that daily fiber production totals about 1,000 miles per day, almost twice what it was around the time of the purchase.
Alcatel plant manager Jim Berry could not be reached for comment.
Workers will receive a raise of 3.5 percent in a few days and an identical raise in each of the next two years. The average wage of $11.50 will go up about 40 cents this year.
In addition, the employees will join a managed care health insurance program that charges a $15 fee to visit a doctor, a plan that Terry said provides more insurance at less cost to workers as well as the company. Until now, workers were enrolled in a standard plan in which they paid 20 percent of the cost of an office visit after satisfying a deductible.
"We bettered ourselves in several aspects," said Eleanor Bailey, 50, a 5 1/2-year employee whose job is to test the finished glass fiber. "We made a step forward, and next time we'll make another step forward."
The contract had its naysayers, though Terry declined to say how many of the 129 workers cast negative votes.
Mike Walton, 29, a four-year employee who spins fiber, said he voted against the contract because he considered the raise inadequate. He noted that Alcatel production workers earn an average wage that is about $2 below the average wage for all manufacturers in the Roanoke metropolitan area.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff Desiree Almond of Trigon Blue Crossby CNBBlue Shield tells members of the Alcatel union about their new
medical plans Friday.