Picketers on the Line at Pacific Bell : Strike Delays Operator-Assistance Calls; Direct-Dial Network Unaffected

Striking phone workers set up picket lines outside many of Pacific Bell’s 53 Orange County facilities Monday as a strike by the Communication Workers of America union on both coasts entered its first business day with no sign of progress toward settlement.

“As long as it takes, we’re ready to stay out here,” said Mary Balis, an operator who had gathered with fellow workers outside a Pacific Bell building on Euclid Street in Garden Grove.

Few Cross Picket Lines

A union official said that up to 2,000 striking operators, technicians and other workers showed up to picket and that fewer than 100 people crossed picket lines. A spokeswoman for Pacific Bell, which serves 731,000 customers in Orange County, said that only a handful of union operators showed up for work.

Sign-waving strikers in Orange County reported peaceful protests Monday. Company and union officials monitoring the picket lines said there was scattered heckling between pickets and people crossing their lines.

Elsewhere in the country, there were reports of minor picket-line violence among the 157,000 phone workers who walked out over the weekend. A dozen striking workers were arrested in Boston Monday and some scuffling was reported at a Pacific Bell billing office and switching center in Burbank.

The strike is against three so-called “Baby Bell” companies that supply local phone service along much of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The automated networks continued working as usual at Pacific Bell, at NYNEX’s phone companies in New York and New England and at Bell Atlantic, whose subsidiaries serve the Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia.

Delays of Up to 5 Minutes

In Orange County, the strike, which has idled nearly 5,000 workers, slowed directory assistance, operator help and other telephone services. Delays of up to five minutes were reported on 411 calls.

“Service is not what customers would expect on a day-to-day basis,” said Linda Bonniksen, a Pacific Bell spokeswoman.

As the strike goes on, Orange County customers can expect little or no effect on direct-dial calls but delays in operator service, directory assistance and repair requests, she said.

“Customers are postponing calling in for new service,” Bonniksen said. “They’re pretty much realizing our limitations.”

The company’s 955 managers in Orange County have been trained to replace striking workers, Bonniksen said, and 350 other managers from the company’s Oakland headquarters arrived Monday to pitch in as operators, maintenance personnel and coin collectors. All are scheduled to work 12-hour shifts, six days a week.

At issue are wages and health care.

Union officials said they would like to see the company pay a larger share of recent increases in health insurance costs and reduce the compensation gap between the highest-paying jobs, dominated by men, and the lowest-paying jobs--such as operators--most of which are held by women.

Charlotte Durbin, executive vice president of Local 9510, said that worker productivity has gone up but that the company’s “retrogressive” offer of a 10.93% pay raise over the next three years won’t match cost-of-living increases.

“That’s not a lot of real money,” Durbin said.

Bell spokeswoman Bonniksen said Monday that the strike could have been avoided if the union had weighed more carefully what the company described as a “generous” contract offer that includes increased medical benefits.

At the company’s offices in Tustin Monday, an emergency operations center normally reserved for disasters such as earthquakes handled calls from other offices needing help to keep up with demand.

In an emergency, the room has enough food for three months and comes complete with cots and ham radios. But on Monday, it took on a quieter pace, as supervisors calmly made sure operations wouldn’t crumble as just 20% of all positions were filled by managers, said Gary Cuccio, Orange County’s customer services general manager for Pacific Bell. (With managers working 72-hour weeks, 40% of total manpower needs are being covered, Cuccio said.)

Cuccio, who traded his desk for a climb on Newport Beach telephone polls Monday, said customers can expect repairs to take a day and installation from three to five days. They were advised to save time by looking up numbers and avoid making collect calls, if possible.

Upstairs, some newly christened operators wore name tags to get acquainted with fellow workers.

Managers who learned the job in one day rather than the usual seven said their new jobs give them an opportunity to learn more about the business.

“It’s been interesting--a side of the business I haven’t worked on,” said operator Arlene Steinert. “We’re all very cautious, though.”

Out on the street in front of Pacific Bell’s Garden Grove facility, things were a little noisier.

During the morning rush hour, many motorists honked and raised their fists in support of the striking workers who paraded in front of the building waving their signs.

“We don’t want to be out here; we’d just as soon be in there,” striker Balis said. “We’d just like to get a piece of the pie we helped create.”

Operator Larry Cain, a single father with two children, said he cannot afford to carry on without an additional increase this year.

“I at least want to stay even with the cost of living,” he said, taking a break from picketing.

Cain, a three-year employee, said pickets are dedicated and intend to stay out on strike as long as possible. Referring to his children, Cain said: “Whatever I give here is going to help them.”

Wesley Wyscarver, who doesn’t work for the phone company but is a friend of a striking worker, joined her in Garden Grove.

“I’m supporting a local cause,” said Wyscarver, lounging on a beach chair next to a clump of empty soda cans and signs that read, “Their profits are off the chart. Now, it’s our turn.”

“If they lose, we all lose.”