sufficiently automated that the company could have maintained a reasonable
level of service for some time if they had decided to resist. Do you have
an explanation for why management was willing to put this on the table after
only 2 1/2 days? How much of this is influenced by the merger mania that
has infected the industry? Who actually led these negotiations? Did that
make a difference?>>
1. First, as to automation, while large parts of the system are automated, the technologies are not as smooth as all the engineers projected. F'rinstance, in most of the large equipment buildings where there are huge fiber floors the air conditioning is old and decrepit. Fiber and switches fail in hot weather unless there are tekkies running around with huge fans to cool off the end office equipment -- dontcha love it? One good august heat wave.... AS new technologies go in, new service is put on new technologies. However, the vast majority of the old service stays on the old technologies which still have problems. Also, there are many parts of the system which need constant human interference -- to wit, the operators and clerks are still one of the best bets for winning a strike, you need those humans answering 611 & 411 calls, and then there is routine maintenance which keeps those automated systems going. F'rinstance, a year or two ago a $2 fuse blew on an ATT switch, the foreman ignored the technical request for replacement fuses since there were none in stock, and the system shut down after 24 hours, it's little automated brain didn't like not being fused (:-)). Enough service went out in lower Manhattan to make the papers -- these kinds of things happen with increasing frequency with a strike. Finally, installations simply do not get done in a strike, and telecommunications is expanding. So, yes the automation helps management, but it is not the panacae (sp?) they like to think it is. 2. I think the 2 1/2 day strike was because: they'd actually been talking on and off for two years and the meat of the contract was already set, Bell Atlantic was shocked that we walked in such strength - they are used to bargaining units working without contracts like New Jersey did for 7 months, and the third point.... 3. The merger with GTE was NOT well received by wall street and there was some fear that a strike would reduce the price of shaky stock in a volatile market. 4. As to who led the negotiations -- I am only aware of a few names on the union side and the team is much larger that the few people I know. However, the person from 1101 is new as are a couple of the national people (f'rinstance there was a woman on the team for the first time). The quality of the detail talked about is really much, much greater than in the past, so clearly the team paid attention to membership complaints, and this I think is a great thing. As to the management team, they were all Bell Atlantic but may have been known to the CWA people from other bargaining contexts, or maybe not. One problem with the process is the tendency of BOTH sides to keep everyone in the dark.. However, part of the attention to detail seems to have come from new people talking to each other for the first time, so part of the increase in benefits may indeed have come from the fact that there was a merger---but mainly this is inference and guess work on my part. maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com