Cwa

WASHINGTON -- Branding Bell Atlantic Corp. the "renegade" of the telephone industry, the Communications Workers of America accused the company yesterday of letting its network and customer service deteriorate while diverting profits into "exotic" new investments.The union made its charges at a news conference as negotiations with Bell Atlantic dragged into their fifth unproductive day since the CWA's three-year contract with the Philadelphia-based company expired. About the only thing the two sides agree on is that progress has been virtually nil.Dave Pacholczyk, a spokesman for Bell Atlantic, dismissed the union's charges as a bargaining tactic.

Verizon's union employees in Maryland and across the region will head back to work early next week after a deal was reached to extend their expired contract pending further negotiations, the company said Saturday in a statement. About 45,000 workers in nine Northeastern states and Washington, D.C. went on strike when their contracts with Verizon Communications Inc. expired two weeks ago. The workers, technicians and customer support employees began negotiating with Verizon in June.

Negotiations in the 13-day strike against Verizon Communications reached a crucial juncture yesterday, with both sides more optimistic than they had been that a settlement could be reached. "I can say with certainty that the end of the strike is one day closer," Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said yesterday. "I absolutely believe that we can reach an agreement with the CWA and the IBEW today." Rabe has been optimistic about ending the strike since 87,000 workers walked off the job. Aug. 6. In contrast, officials from the Communications Workers of America, which represents 72,000 workers, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents 15,000 workers, have complained about the talks' slow pace and maintained that the company wasn't ad-dressing key issues of forced over-time, shifting work and job stress.

It's been five days since 85-year-old Odra Pickeral has had phone service in her residence. Macular degeneration makes seeing a keypad tough, and her home's phone is programmed for frequently dialed numbers. Pickeral is one of more than 100 residents at Heartlands Senior Living Village in Ellicott City who has had to share community phones for almost a week because of the Verizon Communications Inc. worker strike. "I have to ask someone to dial the phone for me," she said. "My daughter tried to call the other day to see if I needed groceries, medications, and couldn't get through.

DENVER - Qwest Communications International Inc., the largest local-telephone service provider in the Northwest, and the Communications Workers of America, which represents 60 percent of its workers, remain at odds on central elements in a new contract more than a day after the old one expired. Contract talks between the company and the CWA are "stalled," said Candice Johnson, a union spokeswoman. She said the two sides are "still very far apart on key issues." Qwest negotiators averted a walkout after failing to reach an agreement before a 12:01 a.m. deadline Sunday, when the old contract ended.

Labor will be on the defensive Tuesday as negotiators for Bell Atlantic Corp. and the Communications Workers of America open talks on a contract covering 37,000 telephone company workers in the mid-Atlantic region.With its once-cushy monopoly threatened by impending competition, the Philadelphia-based phone company will be seeking concessions that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.Job security, wages and retiree health benefits head the list of contentious issues that will face the bargainers as they try to hammer out an agreement by the Aug. 5 contract expiration date.

The Communications Workers of America says it has been blocked from unionizing classified workers at Baltimore County's three community colleges and warn the action could mean the loss of up to 300 students.Ron Collins, vice president of the CWA, said the colleges' board of trustees and the system's new chancellor have refused to recognize the membership that Collins says has been generated among the 425 workers in campus jobs such as computer programming, payroll and other administrative duties.

USAir's ticket and customer service agents, the largest nonunionized employee group at the Arlington, Va.-based airline, have rejected an effort by the Communication Workers of America to organize them.Of the 9,272 agents eligible to vote, 3,973 cast ballots for the CWA's proposal, according to a vote count released yesterday by the National Mediation Board.The CWA was required to obtain the votes of more than 50 percent of the eligible workers in order to win the election. Under board rules, ballots not returned by eligible workers were counted as "no" votes.

The Communications Workers of America, the union representing 73,000 Bell Atlantic Corp. workers, said yesterday that its members will not work without a contract if bargaining does not yield an agreement by tomorrow.If a settlement is near, however, the union said, it might extend the current three-year contract past midnight tomorrow night, when the contract expires.But there will be no repeat of the contract discussions in 1995, when members worked six months without an agreement, union officials said.

The largest union at Bell Atlantic Corp. is not planning to strike before or during the holiday season, but that doesn't mean there is peace at work or goodwill toward management.Instead, the Communications Workers of America and the Philadelphia-based telephone company have settled down into the labor relations version of World War I trench warfare.Three months after the expiration of their contract, about the only thing Bell Atlantic and the CWA agree upon is that no meaningful negotiations are taking place.

DENVER - Qwest Communications International Inc., the largest local-telephone service provider in the Northwest, and the Communications Workers of America, which represents 60 percent of its workers, remain at odds on central elements in a new contract more than a day after the old one expired. Contract talks between the company and the CWA are "stalled," said Candice Johnson, a union spokeswoman. She said the two sides are "still very far apart on key issues." Qwest negotiators averted a walkout after failing to reach an agreement before a 12:01 a.m. deadline Sunday, when the old contract ended.

Verizon Communications Inc.'s union employees were on the job yesterday and will continue, their representatives said, as long as negotiators for the workers and the phone company progress toward a new contract. A midnight deadline Saturday for a new agreement passed with representatives of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers saying they had seen enough progress during the talks in Washington to continue working without a contract.

After tentatively securing $465 million in annual savings from its pilots over the weekend, US Airways pressed its machinists and service employees yesterday for pay concessions that could help the airline avoid bankruptcy. The International Association of Machinists, which represents 13,000 mechanics and related workers, and the Communications Workers of America, which covers 10,000 reservation agents and other service employees, are the only major labor groups that have yet to reach an agreement with management.

Unionized workers protested outside offices of Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday in five cities, including Baltimore, alleging violations of the labor agreement that settled an 18-day strike against the telecommunications company last summer. Stirred by John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, about 150 Verizon employees, wearing red T-shirts and carrying purple signs, chanted and marched in front of the company's offices on East Pratt Street at noon. The Communications Workers of America contend that the company - the nation's largest local and wireless telephone company - has thwarted organizing by workers in two divisions that handle wireless communications and yellow-page directory listings.

More than 35,000 customer service and technical field workers in Maryland and other states remained on strike yesterday against Verizon Communications Inc. as negotiators in Washington continued to work out details of a new contract Representatives for the company and the union representing striking workers reported progress in negotiations for a new contract. "It seems to be moving closer together," said Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America. "We're in intense discussions and negotiations to get this resolved."

More than 35,000 workers in Maryland and other mid-Atlantic states remained on strike against Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday as negotiators continued to be deadlocked over the issue of mandatory overtime for customer service workers. As 50,000 union counterparts in New England and New York began returning to work, strikers in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey began receiving weekly union benefit checks of $200. Verizon negotiators had been bargaining three separate contracts covering the northern and mid-Atlantic memberships of the Communications Workers of America and 15,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

As the strike against Verizon Communications pushed into its 10th day, both company and union officials turned up the rhetoric yesterday even as they reported progress. Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said the company's latest proposal, issued late Monday, addresses the unions' concerns about diverting call center work and alleviating job stress. "It could come together in a matter of hours ... ," he said. "We think we're there." But Rabe, who has been cautiously optimistic through much of the strike, seemed to tire of his own refrain that an end was near.

In what could become the largest successful, private- sector organizing effort in the last decade, votes will be tallied tomorrow in the Communications Workers of America's drive to unionize about 9,000 US Airways' passenger service agents.An organizing effort by the CWA fell several hundred votes short of winning a majority early this year. But a new election was ordered by the National Mediation Board after it determined that the Arlington, Va.-based airline had inappropriately tried to influence the outcome.

Negotiations in the 13-day strike against Verizon Communications continued past the unions' midnight deadline into the early hours today with both sides reporting progress on key issues. "We're really moving head," said Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America, one of the two unions involved. "We've got a lot of ground to cover, but we're making progress." Johnson made those remarks at 12:30 a.m. today by telephone from Washington, where the talks are being held.

Negotiations in the 13-day strike against Verizon Communications reached a crucial juncture yesterday, with both sides more optimistic than they had been that a settlement could be reached. "I can say with certainty that the end of the strike is one day closer," Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said yesterday. "I absolutely believe that we can reach an agreement with the CWA and the IBEW today." Rabe has been optimistic about ending the strike since 87,000 workers walked off the job. Aug. 6. In contrast, officials from the Communications Workers of America, which represents 72,000 workers, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents 15,000 workers, have complained about the talks' slow pace and maintained that the company wasn't ad-dressing key issues of forced over-time, shifting work and job stress.