Bills Are Going Up

The strike of 200,000 members of the Communications Workers of America against 20 Bell System companies caused only minor breakdowns in American Telephone & Telegraph's highly automated transcontinental telephone system. Everything continued to work so smoothly that the C.W.A. negotiator, calling from New York City's St. Moritz Hotel late one night last week, could dial through quickly to C.W.A. President Joseph A. Beirne in his Washington office. "We've got it here!" the negotiator reported proudly to Beirne. On his telephone for more long-distance calls, Beirne was able without delay to alert 19 other strike teams and tell them that the "pattern" negotiations between the C.W.A. and A.T. & T.'s subsidiary, Western Electric, had concluded with an average annual 6.5% wage and benefits increase over three years.

Other bargaining units from coast to coast quickly came to the same terms. After that, calling off the strike, which had been aimed at telephone service in 47 states, needed only membership ratification for picket lines to dissolve and for installers, repairmen, operators and clerks to return to jobs that have been held down in their absence by supervisory personnel. Beirne predicted that ratification would come quickly.

The C.W.A. announced the increases would cost Ma Bell no less than $2 bil lion as the average hourly wage of telephone workers rises from $2.89 to $3.46 over the three-year period. A.T. & T. denied the cost would be that great. Even so, warned A.T. & T. President Ben S. Gilmer, "the increased costs these settlements impose will inevitably have some effect on the rates our customers pay for service." In other words, telephone bills are going up.

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