Saturday, August 29, 1998

Union charges U S West of illegally recruiting workers

By SANDY SHORE

Associated Press

DENVER -- Union claims that U S West Inc. is recruiting illegal "strikebreakers" from Canada highlighted the 12th day of a walkout that shows little sign of ending anytime soon.

Negotiators for U S West and the Communications Workers of America were scheduled to return to the bargaining table today after two sessions Thursday failed to end the first strike in U S West's 14-year history.

U S West's 34,000 CWA members in 13 states have been off the job for nearly two weeks.

CWA officials said they have told the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and Labor Department that U S West is recruiting illegal workers from Canada.

U S West acknowledged in a statement that it is using contract workers during the strike, but said all arrangements, "to the best of our knowledge" are legal.

In a separate development, U S West spokesman David Beigie said investigators had determined a construction crew was responsible for cutting a phone cable Thursday that led to an outage in 911 service in Elbert County, south of Denver. The outage slowed efforts to save the life of a 9-month-old boy who stopped breathing.

Investigators had been looking into whether the cable might have been cut deliberately.

Meanwhile, members of a second union warned they may strike next week unless they reach a new contract agreement.

Bargaining teams for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Montana and U S West have yet to agree on wages, pensions, a performance-pay plan and health-care benefits, said union spokesman Clark Spranget in Helena.

U S West has about 25 million customers in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.