FIRST STRIKE BREAKS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22318, 1 May 1947, Page 5

FIRST STRIKE BREAKS

U.S. TELEPHONE WORKERS 46,000 TO RESUME JOBS (10 a.m.) NEW YORK, April 30. After an all-night conference, the New York Telephone Company and union officials to-day settled the 23-day-old telephone strike. The terms have not been announced, but it has been agreed that 40,000 workers will return to work to-morrow. The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania has also reached an agreement with the union, and 6000 maintenance workers will resume work to-day. These two settlements are the first major breaks in the coast-to-coast strike, but the unions involved in them are not affiliates of the National Federation of Telephone Workers which called the nation-wide strike on April 7, and the settlements were made independently. The agreement provides for wage increases of up to four dollars weekly instead of the original 12 sought by the unions. Meanwhile, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and National Federation of Telephone Workers are conferring, but there is no sign of any agreement. The strike will still affect the greater part of the country. Four striking telephone unions have settled with .the New York Telephone Company for a wage increase of four dollars weekly. The automatic telephones have functioned almost perfectly throughout the strike, but the long-distance service is only 40 per cent, of normal and manual calls have been restricted to emergency.