The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCIII, No. 33-S Ann Arbor, Michigan - Tuesday, August 9, 1983 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
Mich. Bell
operators
put city
on hold
By HALLE CZECHOWSKI
and
KAREN TENSA
Management and recorded messages at the Michigan
Bell office in Ann Arbor are filling in for more than 350
operators and repair personnel who walked out on their
jobs Sunday as part of a nationwide strike against the
American Telephone and Telegraph Co.
Nearly 700,000 operators and employees are picketing
Bell offices nationwide calling for higher wages, more
benefits, and better job security.
ACCORDING TO local Bell officials, operators will only
answer urgent calls and no new phones will be connected
until the strike ends.
If the picketing continues through September, Univer-
sity students returning in the fall will have a difficult time
getting telephones installed, said Len Singer, a Michigan
Bell spokesman.
However, Singer said he doesn't expect the pickets to
last that long. "We certainly hope the strike won't be
going on in September," he said.
LOCAL WORKERS are picketing the Bell office on
Huron Street in four-hour shifts, said Dee Curtis, one of
four Bell operators picketing yesterday afternoon.
Although Bell officials said customers haven't noticed a
reduction in service yet, eventually the drastic cut in help
will make the management "go crazy," said Curtis.
Currently, negotiations with AT & .T and the three
unions:, the Communication Workers of America, the In-
ternational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the
Telecommunications International Union, are stalled.
THE UNIONS contend that because the company is be-
coming more profitable, workers deserve a larger share of
the profits in higher wages.
Another key factor is the recent Supreme-Court-ordered
See TELEPHONE, Page 5
Rastaman vibration
Jamaican reggae superstar Peter Tosh entertained a full house Saturday night at the Michigan
Theatre. See Story Page 10.
Diag peace vigil marks
1945 Nagasaki bombing
By BETH ALLEN
There'll be several students in the
Diag today who won't be takinga nap or
playing frisbee.
Members of the Progressive Student
Network (PSN) are holding a 24-hour
peace vigil, beginning at 8 a.m., to
commemorate the bombing of
Nagasaki 38years ago today.
ORGANIZERS SAID yesterday their
vigil is also in protest of military
research on campus, and is par-
ticularly directed against the Regent's
refusal to approve a more stringent
University-wide defense research
policy.
But today's vigil is just a warm-up for
bigger things in the fall when students
come back to school, according to PSN
spokesperson David Miklethun.
"We feel a need to step up our efforts,
particularly in light of the rejection of
the guidelines by the Regents,"
Miklethun said. "It's the beginning of a
longer, stepped-up campaign."
THE FALL campaign will include
more 24-hour vigils, Miklethun said.
But he added that PSN may stage the
protests for several days in a row in-
stead of just one night.
Micklethun said PSN is not expecting
today's vigil to match the size of the
ones held during the school year.
"We're not expecting to have three to
four hundred people. It's just going to
be a few of us," he said.
"It's just a personal thing," said Tom
Marx, co-organizer of the vigil.
MIKLETHUN SAID the idea for the
demonstration came from "local
initiative," and was not connected to
See PROTESTERS, Page 2