Labor-management bargaining in 1992

Monthly Labor Review, Jan, 1993 by Michael H. Cimini, Susan L. Behrmann, Eric M. Johnson

Separate negotiations between the two unions and the remaining regional Bell telephone companies (Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell, and US West) began in June to replace contracts that would expire in August. In August, the companies and unions signed 3-year collective bargaining agreements, covering about 270,000 telephone operators, clerical employees, sales and business representatives, and lineworkers. The major issues in dispute were wages,job security, pensions, and health care costs.

The Pacific Telesis contract with CWA covered about 38,500 workers in California and Nevada. Terms included:

* a 12-percent increase in the wage package, including job upgrades and special adjustments;

* annual incentive awards if the company achieves its financial and service goals;

* a 13-percent increase in pension benefits;

* $2 million for referral services for employees to locate help for child and eider care, adoption, and school age children;

* up to 12 months of family leave in increments in a 24-month period; and

* establishment of joint committees on such issues as technological change, career planning, health care, safety and health, and training and retraining.

The parties negotiated several changes in job security, including the placement of potential surplus workers into work groups with job vacancies; the offer of early retirement incentives to eligible employees; establishment of an automated job posting and bidding system, with priority placement for surplus workers; wage protection for surplus workers placed into downgraded jobs, with reimbursement of relocation expenses if new jobs are not within commuting distance; and $9 million over the term of the agreement for a jointly administered training/ retraining program.

The BellSouth agreement with CWA covered about 62,000 workers in nine southeastern States. It called for an 11.3-percent increase in the wage package, including expected cost-of-living adjustments and profit-sharing payments; expanding the job pool for surplus workers; shifting work previously done by contractors to the bargaining unit; special leave programs to cut the number of surplus jobs; improving compensation for surplus workers; and forming a joint committee to study the company's practice of contracting out certain work, with the goal of returning work to union members. The contract also improved health care and pension benefits.

The Southwestern Bell contract with CWA covered approximately 42,000 workers in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas. It provided a 12.3-percent wage increase over the contract term, additional upgrades for workers in rural areas to bring their pay to the same level as workers in urban areas, and a new "Success Sharing" plan that will give workers cash or stock if the company performs well.

The job security provisions included a company pledge of neutrality in union organizing drives at nonunion subsidiaries, transfer rights for surplus employees to other subsidiaries, a joint task force to deal with subcontracting issues, and arrangements to return contract work to surplus craft employees. The contract also provided for improved health care, family care plans, and pension benefits, and called for committees to study (1) ways to eliminate secret monitoring, (2) sales quota issues, (3) health care cost containment, and (4) technological change issues.