Workers join national strike against SBC Communications

Lolita Harper

Evidence of the nationwide strike of communication union workers

against SBC Communications showed up on city streets Friday as local

technicians picketed outside the Fairview Road garage in opposition

to cuts in health care and job outsourcing, union officials said.

A group of about six technicians based out of the SBC garage in

Costa Mesa stopped work to protest a proposed contract, marching in

front of their work with signs that read: “Keep jobs in California”

and “for health care and hometown work.” The men were members of the

Communication Workers of America Local 9510 and took part in a

nationwide four-day strike in response to stalled negotiations.

Although the men said they gladly opposed the offered contract,

they were not as willing to give their names and deferred all

comments to the union’s regional president.

Nita Moreno, president of Local 9510, said the union has initiated

the four-day strike because contract discussions have stalled after

informal talks between regional negotiators went nowhere, even after

lasting until midnight Thursday.

“We are taking this action now in hopes that we can avoid a

full-blown strike,” Moreno said.

SBC is trying to get employees to pay more into healthcare, which

would skyrocket prescription prices, among other things, Moreno said.

Although the company claims the increase is only 10%, Moreno said certain costs would increase by 74%.

“Within four years, I could be paying $80 for a $5 prescription

now,” Moreno said.

In a statement on the company website, SBC officials wrote, “the

decision to strike is difficult to understand, especially since our

proposal increases wages and pensions to among the highest in the

industry; provides health care coverage with no monthly premiums;

and, before the union insisted on moving the job security issue to a

regional table, our proposal guaranteed a job offer for any employee

whose job is surplused.”

Technicians at the Fairview Road garage are the employees who

repair and install lines, employees said. The center, which once

employed more than 100 people, has been cut to about 60 who are

required to cover Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine, Santa Ana and

Westminster, officials said. Tenures of those one the Costa Mesa

picket line ranged from 23 years to five, the men said.