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Qwest, CWA union to resume bargaining Thursday

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 3, 2008 at 2:45 p.m.
Updated October 3, 2008 at 10:15 p.m.

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Qwest Communications and its largest union will resume bargaining Thursday, setting a midnight deadline Friday for reaching a new tentative agreement.

Members of the Communications Workers of America this week soundly rejected a proposed three-year contract hammered out just a week before the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August. The CWA represents about 20,000 Qwest employees.

Union officials have said its members, who would have faced health-care premiums for the first time, were upset at the way they were treated by the Denver telco. The additional health care costs would have offset a good portion of a proposed 9.73 percent wage increase over three years.

Qwest spokesman Bob Toevs and CWA District 7 spokesman Al Kogler on Friday both confirmed the new bargaining schedule but declined to comment about possible new proposals.

Kogler said the union agreed with Qwest "to let the negotiations go the best they can without anything in the media about specific items."

Donna Jaegers, a telecommunications analyst for D.A. Davidson & Co. in Denver, speculated that union workers felt like they have given up enough in the past few years to help Qwest reach financial stability.

"Maybe Qwest needs to sweeten (the original deal) and give them a little more upfront," Jaegers said.

But she added Qwest again has an economic card to play given the country's current financial turmoil. In fact, Qwest separately laid off an undisclosed number of nonunion employees in its network and mass markets groups this week.

"I don't think anyone in the union really wants to go on strike," Jaegers said. She also noted the union doesn't have as strong of a bargaining position now that the political conventions are over.

Qwest was the official telecommunications provider for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The CWA has authorized a strike as a last resort, and Qwest has reactivated its strike-contingency plan.

Toevs declined to comment about the non-union job cuts, except to say: "Balancing work force to work load is a continual process at Qwest."

Qwest has been losing traditional land-line customers at a dramatic rate because of competition from cable and wireless companies, and the housing slump.

Comments

  • October 5, 2008

    12:05 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    25,000 people compelled as a condition of employment to join the union.

    25,000 workers without a voice ... come on Union Bosses do tell ... I bet less then 25% of the members voted (total) and what 60% voted against.

    Guess what, that means 15-20% of the total employees voted it down. This means 80-85% liked it or are so unaware of their forced union membership rights to vote that they didn't vote.

  • October 6, 2008

    7:13 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    unionraised writes:

    I know in AZ, union members received the vote numbers and a large number of total members voted. Some of our union brothers and sisters are IBEW. We are not forced union workers, you have a choice. I have been union my whole life starting with my parents.

    The workload doesn't change, management (top) is forcing the technicians to touch more tickets in a small amount of time. We get 58 minutes to resolve a customers issue. That includes time to get there. If it takes 15 minutes to get to the job site we have 43 minutes to resolve the issue. How is that customer service, it takes an average of 70 minutes on the ticket at least. We don't know how long until we know what the problem is. In a day we have to take breaks 30 minutes, and a 30 minute lunch. That leaves 7 hours of true work time. I want to know how the company can force us to do at least 5 tickets a day? That's complete jobs not touched jobs. You can have jobs the status has changed, customer has change their mind about a service, may not be home, won't answer the door, address information is incorrect and so on. We don't get credit for the day for these jobs, in turn we are given more work to make our numbers for that day. Which turns into forced overtime, which the company doesn't want. The technician then is told that they must finish their route before they can go home. This can lead in to a 12 hour day. This happens everyday.

  • October 7, 2008

    10:44 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    DSCNNCTD writes:

    Read the truth HERE!!!
    http://groups.msn.com/DSCNNCTDSQWestE...