Qwest Communications, Union Resume Talks for 25,000 Workers

Aug. 16–Qwest Communications International and its chief union resumed talks late Monday afternoon after a day of no reported progress on a new contract for 25,000 workers in 13 states, including nearly 4,000 employees in Minnesota.

Worker remain on the job but are prepared to strike “at any time,” Tim Lovaasen, president of the Minnesota State Council of the Communications Workers of America, said Monday.

Qwest workers are seeking their first wage increase in three years and increases to their pension plan, union officials have said.

The workers also want to limit mandatory overtime to eight hours a week and hold the line on their share of health care costs for employees and retirees.

Denver-based Qwest, which is shouldering $17 billion in debt and seeing its customer base shrink, wants its workers to work more mandatory overtime and pay a greater portion of their health care costs, according to the CWA.

Qwest spokesman Bob Toevs has declined to comment on specifics of the negotiations. “We are continuing to work toward a new agreement,” he said Monday before talks resumed in Denver.

Lovaasen said he monitored the bargaining until 1 a.m. Monday before they recessed, after two days of intense negotiations that raised hopes of avoiding a strike. “Movement is slow,” he said Monday.

Qwest agreed to back off of an earlier demand to require up to 16 hours of mandatory overtime a week from its employees, but it demanded the right to call for one hour of “incidental” overtime a week, Lovaasen said.

Wages and health care remain as two sticking points, Lovaasen said. “We put some proposals to them and they haven’t accepted them at this point,” he said. He declined to give specifics about the union proposal.

The CWA says it represents 4,000 Minnesota Qwest employees while Qwest puts the number closer to 3,300. The last strike at Qwest occurred in August 1998 for 15 days when the company was known as US West. Minnesota is one of 14 states Qwest serves; the company is negotiating with the CWA in 13 of those states, and with a separate union representing workers in Montana.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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