WASHINGTON (AP) -Nearly 80,000 Verizon employees remained on the job Monday as contract negotiations continued under a federal mediator.
A three-year contract expired at midnight Saturday and the union had threatened a strike, but telephone operators and technicians avoided any disruption of service at the nation’s largest provider of local and wireless phone service.
“It’s been our sense since Saturday that we’ve been making enough progress to continue to talk and to ask our members to stay on the job until further notice,” said Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Communications Workers of America, which represents about 60,000 workers. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents another 18,000.
Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe agreed that there was progress.
As its local phone service business shrinks, Verizon wants to be able to cut costs, including asking employees to pay a higher share of health care or being able to lay off workers if necessary.
The company’s growth is occurring in areas where the work force is not heavily unionized, such as wireless phones and high-speed Internet connections.
The union questions whether any layoffs are needed, and says any employees who lose their jobs should get first crack at other employment with the company.
The talks are taking place against the backdrop of a July arbitration ruling that required Verizon to rehire 2,300 people in New York state who had been laid off in December. Following the ruling, Verizon brought back about 1,100 laid-off employees in three other states, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts, who had also asked arbitrators to overturn the dismissals.
The company argued that the layoffs were justified because of a weak economy and tougher competition from rival companies and new technologies.
But the New York arbitrator ruled that layoffs should be restricted to examples specified in the now-expired agreement, like the loss of a major contract.
Verizon cut 18,000 jobs in 2002, primarily through attrition and voluntary buyouts.
A strike could disrupt some local service in northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, and delay repair and installation orders. An 18-day walkout in 2000 caused a backlog of about 250,000 repair requests and new orders for Verizon.
But the company said customers making regular long-distance and local calls should not have trouble.
Verizon had 30,000 managers and outside contract workers ready to take over in case of a walkout.
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On the Net:
Verizon: http://www.verizon.com
Communications Workers of America: http://www.cwa-union.org
AP-ES-08-04-03 1752EDT
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