These days one might think, "So what?" if workers at a phone company went on strike. After all, many of us already feel as if they are on strike when we try to talk to a real person at our cell phone provider's customer service department.
But in the days when one needed an operator to place any but the most routine of phone calls, a strike was news.
During a phone worker strike in the 1960s, one could call long distance, but only number-to-number. If the party the caller wanted to speak to wasn't available, there was still a long-distance charge.
To avoid that charge when the caller wasn't sure to get his or her party, one had to call person-to-person. That required an operator. And during a strike, that operator was a supervisor doing a job he or she wasn't accustomed to carrying out.
Tucson was included in the effects of a phone worker strike in 1968.
From the Arizona Daily Star, Friday, April 19, 1968:
Service will continue
Phone Workers Strike In City
By TOM TURNER
A 40-member local of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) walked off jobs at Mountain States Telephone here yesterday in a strike that could eventually idle some 545 Tucsonβs.
Local 4890, installers of large equipment connected with the Western Electric Co., set up picket lines at Mountain States offices downtown and Country Club Rd. at Speedway after CWA declared a nationwide strike against Western Electric. Over 165,000 workers across the nation were involved.
A Tucson Mountain States representative said that Tucsonβs may place person-to-person long distance calls and collect calls as usual, although service may be βsomewhat slower.β
βWe, of course, are not as good as it as our professionals,β he said.
Installation and repair may be similarly slowed, depending on the number of Local 8526 members idled, the spokesman said.
Local dialing and direct long distance dialing are automatic systems and will not be affected in any way, he continued.
Local 4890 contracts in Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff and Yuma expired in March. Negotiations are proceeding on a national basis in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, two other Tucson locals of CWA have pledged to honor the 4890 picket lines β βwherever they are established.β
This means that only those operators, clerks, installers and repairmen working out of the two picketed buildings will be off the job β at least for now.
Contracts with Local 8150 β 30 AT & T Long Lines Dept. workers β and Local 8526 β 475 operators, clerks, installers and repairmen β do not expire until May 9.
Local 8526 is contracted with the Mountain States Co. and Local 8150 with AT & T.
Arizona Mountain State Vice President and General Manager Lawson V. Smith said in Phoenix yesterday that supervisory personnel will replace those employees absent because of the strike.
Smith pledged that employes remaining on the job will βcontinue to serve the public to the best of their ability.β
Tucson network television stations reported yesterday there has been no work that their AT & T microwave relay transmission systems will be disrupted.
Locals 8490 and 8150 are organized on a district basis and are represented in Tucson by Stewards Van Duesen (8490) and Richard Harpster (8150). Local 8526 is locally contained and is headed by its president, Richard Gebhardt.
In Washington Joseph A. Beirne, president of the AFL-CIO communications workers, urged another 50,000 telephone employee to refuse to cross the strikerβs picket lines.
Beirne then joined a picket line at the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. of Washington for about an hour.
Officials of the Bell Telephone System and its parent firm, American Telephone & Telegraph Co., said they expect to maintain almost normal service as supervisors took over many jobs.
But Beirne said if management officials think they can run the huge national telephone network for long without the striking union members, βThey must be taking something somewhat stronger than LSD.β
Management officials said there might be some initial problems with person-to-person long-distance calls and other services requiring an operatorβs assistance.
Most heavily affected immediately will be orders for new phones and transfers of phone because the strikers include 23,000 telephone installers who work for the Bell manufacturing subsidiary, Western Electric Co.
Beirne said telephone credit card users also will be seriously affected because credit calls require an operator. βEighty to 85 per cent of all long distance calls are charged,β Beirne said.
The telephone installers unit of the union is on strike in about 40 states. In addition strikers include Bell system switchboard operators, repairmen, testers, linemen, clerks and other workers in 15 states and the District of Columbia.
Other Bell Systems contracts covering another 116,000 Communications Workers in 16 additional states expire at various times within the next few weeks.
The union has rejected company pay increase offers of 7.5 per cent over 18 months. Bell officials said the union is demanding 10.5 per cent. Installers now average $3.27 per hour and other telephone workers $2.79 hourly.
βWe have been, and remain fluid β willing to talk, willing to consider, willing to negotiate,β Beirne said at a news conference.
βThe position of the CWA is not frozen,β he said.
Beirne said talks between Western Electric and union officials are continuing in New York.
Federal mediator Walter Maggiolo said βWe are still talking to the parties and will continue.β
People younger than age 30, possibly those younger than age 40, may not remember a time when every long-distance phone call caused an extra charge on the monthly phone bill. Mobile phones have made long-distance charges almost obsolete.
Collect calls also required an operator, and an agreement from the receiving party to pay for the call.
Those wanting a new phone didn't just go to the local Walmart and pick one up. It had to be obtained through the phone company and was often a lease.
It was likely big news back in 1927 when one could get a phone that didn't require two hands. The hand set phone became available. The transmitter and receiver were in a single piece so one could hold the receiver to the ear and the transmitter was close to the mouth. Genius, huh?
An advertisement in the Arizona Daily Star October 19, 1927.
