Communication Workers Of America

Negotiators for 38,000 unionized workers agreed tentatively on a contract with NYNEX Corp. on Monday and called off an eight-day-old strike against its New York and New England telephone company subsidiaries, officials said. The Communication Workers of America instructed its members to return to work as of midnight, the union and NYNEX said in a joint statement issued after what they called "intensive bargaining" over the weekend and on Monday.

Bell of Pennsylvania reached tentative agreement Friday to avert a walkout by 12,000 employees, while contract talks remained stalled for 52,000 striking "Baby Bell" telephone workers across the nation. Talks in Washington, Iselin, N.J., and Philadelphia revolved around local issues affecting 40,000 employees of Bell Atlantic in six states and the nation's capital.

The Democratic presidential campaigns for Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. will hold caucuses in Orange County and throughout the state on Sunday to elect possible delegates for the national convention. Only those people who filed applications by the April 9 deadline can run as delegate candidates. But any registered Democrat can vote on which candidates should be selected to attend the convention.

Led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a host of political, religious and community leaders, more than 1,000 workers marched to Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday for a boisterous, labor-sponsored rally -- one of dozens of actions staged across the country to promote the right to organize unions. Marchers ranged from private security guards to newspaper reporters.

Unions representing broadcasters and camera crews called for an emergency meeting Wednesday with radio and television stations to devise uniform safety standards for news gathering in the field. The announcement was made two days after TV news reporter Adrienne Alpert suffered fourth-degree burns when the microwave antenna from a KABC-TV, Channel, 7 broadcast van grazed or came near a 34,500-volt power line.

A picketer injured in a confrontation with a non-striking worker who was trying to drive into a New York Telephone Co. parking lot died Tuesday, a day on which the Communications Workers of America and NYNEX announced that informal talks would resume today. Edward Horgan, 34, died of head and neck injuries at Westchester County Medical Center on the 10th day of the strike by 189,000 union employees against four "Baby Bell" companies in 20 states and the nation's capital.

Videomaker Todd Darling's "High Tech Families" (today at 5 p.m., Channel 28) arrives on the wake of the just-passed San Francisco municipal ordinance requiring strict guidelines in all work places with video display terminals. The timing is interesting. While San Francisco workers, organized through Communication Workers of America, pushed for the ordinance's passage, non-union workers in high-tech Silicon Valley south of the city continue to flounder in dead-end drudgery--or worse.

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and its unions, working past a strike deadline, will resume contract talks today after nonstop negotiations Monday failed to bring a settlement. Job security, wages and pensions were the issues in the talks between AT&T and the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Both sides were working past a strike deadline to try to avert a nationwide walkout by about 127,000 employees.

Hoping to bring more of its 13 million members online, labor giant AFL-CIO said it is creating its own Internet service provider, called Workingfamilies.com The service--due to launch Dec. 1 at a cost of $14.95 per month--will allow unions to mobilize members at Web speed in legislative and political campaigns, organizing drives or product boycotts, federation officials said.

Workers at 11 state mental hospitals have filed suit against California authorities, charging that understaffing and unsafe working conditions have led to a rising incidence of injuries among workers. Psychiatric technicians held press conferences at several state hospitals Thursday to draw attention to their legal battle for improved working conditions.