SBC, union reach tentative agreement after four-day strike

By T.A. Badger

SAN ANTONIO — SBC Communications, the nation’s second-largest local phone company, agreed to a tentative contract Tuesday that guarantees work for its more than 100,000 union employees and could reduce the outsourcing of jobs.
The agreement with the Communications Workers of America came hours after the employees returned to their jobs following a four-day strike. CWA members will vote in June on the five-year deal.
‘‘This agreement helps ensure that American workers and their communities benefit from the promise of new information technology jobs,’’ CWA President Morton Bahr said in a statement.
Union workers walked off the job Friday and picketed in 13 states to put pressure on San Antonio-based SBC, one of the four Baby Bell local-phone companies.
The striking workers included operators, linesmen, engineers, clerical workers, installers and service representatives.
The union sought to give them access to positions in SBC’s emerging sectors, including Internet support and wireless data service. That work is now handled largely by lesser-paid contract workers, many of them in India and the Philippines.
The tentative contract calls for SBC and the union to work together to bring the technical support jobs back to the United States when the current contract expires in two years.
The CWA estimates that SBC outsources 3,000 jobs to overseas workers and 20,000 jobs to domestic companies. The company would not confirm those numbers but said its outsourcing is ‘‘minimal for a company our size.’’
SBC spokesman Larry Solomon said the proposed deal would guarantee traditional telephone jobs to SBC’s unionized workers and allow them to compete for the emerging technology positions.
Ralph Cortez, president of CWA Local 6143 in San Antonio, said the agreement gives workers access to jobs running fiber-optic cable to households, work that is often outsourced to U.S. companies.
‘‘You talking about millions of homes across America,’’ Cortez said. ‘‘To cut us out of that loop, you talking many, many jobs.’’
The settlement also guarantees no layoffs of employees now on the payroll for the life of the agreement and calls for rehiring of several hundred laid-off workers. SBC agreed to provide current CWA members with a job offer elsewhere in the company if their jobs are no longer needed.
In addition, employees will receive raises of 2.3 percent per year on average for five years and lump sums averaging $300 per year, SBC said.
‘‘SBC now has a labor agreement that provides us greater control over our cost structure and flexibility to meet our competitive challenges, while continuing to provide the outstanding wages and benefits that are hallmarks of this company,’’ SBC chairman and chief executive Edward E. Whitacre Jr. said in a statement.
About 40,000 SBC managers, contract workers and retirees filled in during the strike, the company said.
With 2003 sales of $41 billion, SBC is the nation’s second-largest provider of local-phone service behind Verizon. <-->