SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- The union representing more than 100,000 employees of SBC Communications Inc. says workers for the nation's No. 2 local-phone provider are prepared to walk off the job over wages and health care costs.þþFollowing a 24-hour strike notice by Communications Workers of America, SBC workers could strike as soon as Wednesday afternoon. The union has criticized the for proposing a first-year wage freeze while shifting more health care costs in negotiations for a new contract.þþA strike would likely affect local phone service in SBC's 13-state coverage area, which includes Texas, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Connecticut.þþ``SBC wants it both ways -- gouging our workers on health costs while also demanding a first-year base wage freeze to fatten its profits,'' CWA President Morton Bahr said late Tuesday in a statement on the union's Web site. ``That amounts to pure greed.''þþThe union also accused San Antonio-based SBC of bad-faith bargaining by reneging on part of an earlier tentative agreement on retiree health care.þþSBC spokesman Walt Sharp said Tuesday the company has been negotiating in good faith and that the 24-hour notice doesn't do anything to change its approach.þþ``We see a very, very fair proposal on the table, especially in the area of health care,'' Sharp said by phone from Washington.þþHe said SBC wants higher medical co-payments by workers that would increase their share of total health-care costs to 12 percent, up from less than 7 percent now.þþThe telecommunications company says it has contingency plans for management employees and retirees to handle key duties in case of a walkout.þþThe contract expired in early April. Negotiations have been continuing in Washington, D.C., with a federal mediator. But for the past three months, health care costs and job security issues have been sticking points.þþSettling the SBC-CWA contract dispute is a top priority for the agency, given the number of workers involved, said John Arnold, a Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service spokesman in Washington.þþ``It has a great potential economic impact on not only the lives of the workers, but also the national and regional economies,'' Arnold said Tuesday.þþIn 2003, SBC was by far the most profitable of the four so-called ``Baby Bell'' local-phone companies, earning $8.5 billion on revenue of $40.8 billion.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
