SBC COMMUNICATIONS Union workers stage 4-day strike to protest offer

The 250 SBC workers in the Mahoning Valley are picketing at four sites.
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS
SAN ANTONIO -- After a late-evening shift answering directory-assistance calls, Elinda Belous answered the call of her union.
Belous was one of nearly 100,000 unionized SBC Communications Inc. workers who began a four-day strike early today to protest the local-phone giant's latest contract offer.
"Just let them feel a little pinch," Belous said of the brief work stoppage, triggered when contract talks between SBC and the Communications Workers of America bogged down over health care and job security issues.
But turning the tables on the union, the company notified its leadership Thursday night that it would drop its most recent proposal and start from scratch unless the union accepts it by 11:59 p.m. Monday -- two minutes before the strike is scheduled to end.
"There's been three months' negotiation. There've been six proposals. And the company's position is that the current proposal that's in front of the union is a fair plan, is a very good plan," said Mike Marker, an SBC spokesman based in Indiana.
An after-hours telephone call to CWA headquarters in Washington, D.C., seeking comment on the company's latest position, was not immediately returned early today.
SBC, the second-largest and most profitable of the four "Baby Bell" local-phone providers, said about 40,000 managers, contract workers and retirees will cover key tasks during the strike.
CWA represents more than 100,000 SBC workers in 13 states: Texas, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
Local pickets
In the Mahoning Valley, SBC has about 250 employees, who are represented by CWA Local 4300. They are picketing at the Boardman-Canfield Road office in Boardman and Youngstown offices on Salt Springs Road, Rayen Avenue and Mahoning Avenue.
Mike DeLisio, union steward, said health care and job security is important to local workers. He said 20 to 30 employees have retired in recent months and none have been replaced.
Because SBC's revenue from its core local-phone service is dropping, the union wants its members to have access to jobs in growing areas within the company, among them Internet support, wireless data service and call centers.
Outside contractors, including those with workers in low-wage overseas locations, now handle most of that work.
SBC is the main local phone service provider in much of the Mahoning Valley.
Seth Rosen, spokesman for CWA's District 4 in Cleveland, said thousands of union members would be on the picket lines statewide.
"We're really making a very strong statement of unity and solidarity," Rosen said.
While SBC has proposed annual pay increases, it is also asking workers for higher medical co-payments.
CWA spokeswoman Candice Johnson said the company's proposal would increase the average worker's monthly health care expense to about $70, double the amount under the expired contract.
Remembers last walkout
Belous was among two dozen operators who marched out of their office in San Antonio just after midnight.
A 23-year SBC employee, Belous went through the last CWA strike against SBC -- a four-week walkout in 1983. "It almost killed me," she remembered. "I'm praying it won't be that again."
Belous knows many of the fill-in operators here, among them managers who used to work alongside her, and she says there were no hard feelings.
In Meriden, Conn., nearly 200 striking workers gathered at SBC's technical center and cheered as co-workers walked out after their shift and joined their ranks.
Employee Robert Brown believes the company is obligated to provide its workers with adequate benefits.
"I have two children, so benefits are everything," said Brown, who lives in nearby Middletown.