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Statement by CWA President Morton Bahr on Strike Settlement at Bell Atlantic
I'm pleased to announce a settlement with Bell Atlantic and the end of our strike. CWA members have been instructed to return to their jobs.
This was a unique set of negotiations that has yielded a landmark settlement.
This strike was never about the usual issues like wages, pensions and health care -- those issues were settled weeks ago. The strike was about creating good American jobs for the 21st century.
The information industry is probably our best hope for creating substantial numbers of good jobs in the future. That was a central focus of the President's Advisory Commission on the Information Infrastructure on which I was privileged to serve.
President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Labor Secretary Alexis Herman have all described a vision of a society based on high skill, good paying jobs in this new Information Age.
Our settlement with Bell Atlantic is a giant leap toward that vision. We have agreement that our CWA members will do all the work that we associate with the Information Highway.
This includes such things as the digital communications for our homes which will bring Americans a range of new multi-media services in the future.
It includes building Bell Atlantic's global data network, and performing the network integration work for customers that until now has been contracted out.
It includes Internet services, video, alarm monitoring, special accounts for bundled services, and long distance work when Bell Atlantic is allowed to enter that field.
Quite simple, this settlement guarantees that the growth jobs of the information future will be done by CWA members. And we are talking about many thousands of jobs in the coming years -- jobs that will sustain a decent living standard for American families and strengthen our communities.
And this agreement is good for Bell Atlantic. Competition in this field is going to be based on quality services for customers. And it takes quality people -- skilled, experienced and dedicated people -- to offer that service. Bell Atlantic will certainly have a competitive edge in that regard.
There are many other important features in the settlement. We made progress on another issue of great concern to many of our members -- that of easing levels of mandatory overtime that have grown to burdensome levels. In the southern region, where that is a big problem, we have a commitment to add more jobs, and to put new limits on the amount of overtime that can be required. There will be more emphasis on using volunteers to work extra hours, and the company will consider reasonable excuses for declining overtime.
And we are putting the whole industry on notice that in all of our talks in the future we are going to be demanding better treatment of our members when it comes to forced overtime and other job pressures. Stealing time from family life and parental responsibility is not "family friendly," as the companies like to portray themselves. It is not civilized, and not acceptable to CWA.
This settlement overall sets a high new standard in our industry and in American labor relations. Despite having to strike, we are building good labor relations at Bell Atlantic. We are moving toward a new model of labor relations, and I want to credit CEO Ivan Seidenberg with recognizing the value of a quality workforce and the wisdom of building a cooperative relationship with CWA.
This was a unique set of negotiations that has yielded a landmark settlement.
This strike was never about the usual issues like wages, pensions and health care -- those issues were settled weeks ago. The strike was about creating good American jobs for the 21st century.
The information industry is probably our best hope for creating substantial numbers of good jobs in the future. That was a central focus of the President's Advisory Commission on the Information Infrastructure on which I was privileged to serve.
President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Labor Secretary Alexis Herman have all described a vision of a society based on high skill, good paying jobs in this new Information Age.
Our settlement with Bell Atlantic is a giant leap toward that vision. We have agreement that our CWA members will do all the work that we associate with the Information Highway.
This includes such things as the digital communications for our homes which will bring Americans a range of new multi-media services in the future.
It includes building Bell Atlantic's global data network, and performing the network integration work for customers that until now has been contracted out.
It includes Internet services, video, alarm monitoring, special accounts for bundled services, and long distance work when Bell Atlantic is allowed to enter that field.
Quite simple, this settlement guarantees that the growth jobs of the information future will be done by CWA members. And we are talking about many thousands of jobs in the coming years -- jobs that will sustain a decent living standard for American families and strengthen our communities.
And this agreement is good for Bell Atlantic. Competition in this field is going to be based on quality services for customers. And it takes quality people -- skilled, experienced and dedicated people -- to offer that service. Bell Atlantic will certainly have a competitive edge in that regard.
There are many other important features in the settlement. We made progress on another issue of great concern to many of our members -- that of easing levels of mandatory overtime that have grown to burdensome levels. In the southern region, where that is a big problem, we have a commitment to add more jobs, and to put new limits on the amount of overtime that can be required. There will be more emphasis on using volunteers to work extra hours, and the company will consider reasonable excuses for declining overtime.
And we are putting the whole industry on notice that in all of our talks in the future we are going to be demanding better treatment of our members when it comes to forced overtime and other job pressures. Stealing time from family life and parental responsibility is not "family friendly," as the companies like to portray themselves. It is not civilized, and not acceptable to CWA.
This settlement overall sets a high new standard in our industry and in American labor relations. Despite having to strike, we are building good labor relations at Bell Atlantic. We are moving toward a new model of labor relations, and I want to credit CEO Ivan Seidenberg with recognizing the value of a quality workforce and the wisdom of building a cooperative relationship with CWA.