Cwa

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."

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.

Brandishing a videotape that purportedly shows President Bush's campaign materials being printed in Brazil, union leaders from Maryland criticized Republicans yesterday for abandoning U.S. workers.The tape, which was given to the Communication Workers of America by Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton's campaign organization, shows what appears to be Bush re-election material being printed at a Brazilian factory. Local CWA officials who were in Baltimore yesterday for a national meeting showed the tape to reporters.

Labor Day brought nothing to celebrate yesterday at Bell Atlantic Corp.As of today, the company's 37,000 members of the Communications Workers of America will have been working without a contract for a full month. Both sides agree that negotiations have been going nowhere. The prospects for a settlement anytime soon are virtually nil."Right now we are light-years apart. We have not moved one iota," said Charles Gerhardt, executive vice president of Baltimore's Local 2100.Rather than strike, the CWA is apparently digging in for a long public relations war against Bell Atlantic, the only one of the seven regional Bell companies that has not signed a contract with the union.

San Francisco. -- The rapid and continuing expansion of the information industry could be just what the union doctors ordered -- a rare chance for the country's struggling labor movement to regain its long dwindling power and influence.The largely non-union firms along the so-called Information Superhighway provide labor with its greatest opportunity -- and greatest challenge -- since the 1930s. Unions rose to great prominence then by organizing the heavy industries that had come to dominate the economy.

As the company formerly known as Bell Atlantic forges a new identity as a wireless powerhouse, it faces an old-style labor dispute that could lead to 85,000 union members walking off the job early Sunday. Verizon Communications, the company formed through the merger of Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp. in June, has been negotiating with the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers since June 26. If a new labor agreement isn't reached by 12:01 a.m. Sunday, CWA President Morton Bahr said, he will declare a strike.

Nation: Mortgages Fannie Mae vows to help borrowers Fannie Mae, the biggest U.S. mortgage finance company, pledged yesterday to meet government goals for helping low-income borrowers buy homes after finding that it might have fallen short of some federally required targets last year. Initial findings show that Fannie missed targets in two lending areas by less than 1 percent last year, said Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith. Beginning Jan. 1, 2005, HUD required government-chartered Fannie Mae and smaller rival Freddie Mac to direct 56 percent of their mortgage financing by 2008 to home purchases by people with incomes no greater than the median of their areas.

Passenger-service agents at US Airways Group voted yesterday to join the Communications Workers of America, capping a two-year effort to unionize that had been stalled in federal court.About 5,215 employees voted in favor of union representation, more than two-thirds of the 7,800 employees eligible to vote."It was clear from the start that passenger-service employees would again choose representation," said Morton Bahr, CWA's president. "They've been building their union for nearly two years."

Verizon Communications Inc., the telecommunications giant, is poised for a showdown with unions that represent 75,000 of its workers from Maine to Virginia in a contract negotiation clouded by economic uncertainties and workers' fears of layoffs and cuts in health care benefits. This week, union members voted to authorize their leadership to call a strike without further vote if an agreement on a contract is not reached by Aug. 2, the expiration date of the current contract. A strike would likely slow directory assistance and seriously delay customer service and repair and installation work for thousands of Verizon customers, said Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America, which represents most of the workers.