4-day SBC strike to end today

By T.A. Badger
Associated Press

Managers and retired SBC Communications Inc. employees filled in at the company's service center in Little Rock, Ark., during a four-day walkout by unionized workers. Associated Press

But she's also ready to again pull on her comfortable shoes and hoist her picket sign if SBC and the Communications Workers of America don't settle on a new contract soon.

"We've let people know that we're all together and we'll keep walking if necessary," she said yesterday during a CWA rally outside the company's headquarters in downtown San Antonio. "We'll do it again and again to keep our jobs in America."

The union, representing about 100,000 SBC workers, started its four-day walkout early Friday. The strike is scheduled to end early today.

Dennis Trainor, CWA's area director for Connecticut, said many union workers weren't happy about returning.

"A lot of members are telling us right now that they don't want to come back without a contract," he said.

Healthcare costs and job security have been the major sticking points between SBC and the union, which represents the telecom giant's employees in 13 states.

CWA wants its workers to have access to positions in SBC's emerging technologies, including Internet support and wireless data service. That work is now handled largely by lesser-paid contract workers, many of them in India and the Philippines.

On healthcare, SBC wants higher medical co-payments that would double the average worker's healthcare expense to $70 a month. The CWA workers do not pay monthly premiums for health insurance.

Negotiators put in long days over the weekend, and the bargaining continued into yesterday among regional groups in Chicago; New Haven, Conn.; Austin, Texas; and Pleasanton, Calif.

Andy Milburn, CWA vice president for Texas and nearby states, said the company has been more willing to discuss key issues.

"We've seen more movement since the strike began than in the 90 days of bargaining before it," he said. "We're hopeful that in the next few days we can get this wrapped up ... without a full-blown strike."

SBC spokesman Walt Sharp agreed yesterday that progress was being made, but he wouldn't discuss whether breakthroughs might be near. He said SBC planned to welcome workers when the strike ends.

During the strike, about 40,000 SBC managers, contract workers and retirees filled in at service centers, spliced cable and made repairs.

With 2003 sales of $41 billion, SBC is the nation's second-largest provider of local-phone service, with operations in Texas, Connecticut, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Nevada.