🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <telecom-v09i0388m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> narten@lovelace.albany.
edu (Thomas Narten) writes:
>The Nynex strike has been going on long enough now that many of the
>services formerly handled by the strikers are being processed with
>reasonable speed. ...

I was talking to a friend who lives in an apartment a block from the Ware
Street exchange in Cambridge.  His phone doesn't work, so he called repair.  A
fellow finally arrived who seemed a little rusty on the details but otherwise
generally competent.  After some experimentation (his line is so short that
the TDR has trouble getting good answers) it appeared that the problem was in
a connection on a pole directly in front of the exchange where there are of
course pickets all the time.

The repairman said he couldn't fix it, he feared for his safety.  It ain't
over yet.

If nobody else has reported it, the strike now looks to last indefinitely.
The strikers' medical benefits were supposed to run out last week but a judge
to many people's surprise ruled that since the phone company hasn't suffered a
"significant curtailment of business" or some such the strikers are still
covered.  This will cost NYNEX and every other employer in the state a bundle,
and there was a short flurry of negotiations, but nothing happened.  The
situation is not made any easier by the fact that the New England Tel and New
York Tel workers are members of different unions who are negotiating
separately in Boston and near New York.  The unions apparently offered to
negotiate jointly, but NYNEX declined.

John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, Levine@YALE.edu
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe