Sprint workers fret over merger

David Strow

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999 | 11:07 a.m.

The union representing 1,500 Sprint employees in Las Vegas is worried about potential cutbacks locally in the wake of MCI WorldCom's $129 billion buyout of Sprint, despite company assurances that there will be few changes.

"Obviously, we're very nervous," said Jim Anzinger, business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 396. "We don't have a clue what our future is ... are they going to sell us off piecemeal? What kind of an employer will we have then?

"Nobody likes change. It's the unknown," said Anzinger, who appeared Tuesday on the Las Vegas Sun's television news show POV Vegas.

MCI has little union representation at its operations around the country, though union officials intend to demand that MCI maintain its union contracts.

"Relations (with Sprint) have gotten so poor, it's all about attorneys now," Anzinger said. "Resolution of issues, until a week ago, was almost impossible.

"We are very hopeful that relations between the new owner and the unions will improve."

Rob McCoy, Sprint's local spokesman, disagreed that Sprint's relations with the IBEW were rocky.

"I think we've always had a good working relationship with the IBEW," McCoy said. "You always have your share of ups and downs with any relationship, but we have a good relationship, and we don't see that changing."

The IBEW's international office plans to intervene in federal hearings on the merger, as does the international office of Communications Workers of America, which represents some Sprint employees elsewhere in the country.

Anzinger said little information has filtered down to employees on the long-term impact of Sprint's merger. Local managers have told union officials they're taking a "business as usual" approach in Las Vegas, and have said they plan to keep the Sprint name intact.

But an element that worries union members is consolidation. In the past, Anzinger said, jobs have been moved out of Las Vegas to be centralized in Kansas City, Sprint's hometown. There's concern that MCI could take consolidation further and move more jobs out of the area.

McCoy said it was too early to definitively say what impact the merger would have on local operations.

"But on the other hand, from a Las Vegas perspective, with the growth in this market, I don't think you'd see a tremendous amount of consolidation of jobs outside of Las Vegas," McCoy said.

Sprint's operations in Las Vegas represent the most unusual piece of the company's local telephone operations. Its local telephone operations across the country are primarily rural, making Sprint's Las Vegas exchange its largest in the country.

The rumor among local employees now is that MCI would spin off Sprint's local telephone operations. There's hope that the buyer would be BellSouth Corp., the Atlanta company that failed in its attempt to outbid MCI for control of Sprint. The belief is that MCI is more interested in Sprint's wireless and long distance holdings.

"With BellSouth, our survival chances would be a lot better than with somebody who really doesn't understand local distribution systems," Anzinger said. "Our security would be a lot better than with WorldCom-MCI.

"We've talked with a couple of labor leaders ... and they say (BellSouth) seem to be more willing to listen to the unions. Union and management will always have disagreements, but at least they'll talk to one another. That's something we're missing with Sprint."

McCoy declined to address the spin-off possibility directly, saying that MCI considered Sprint's local telephone holdings "a very attractive asset." It could be used as a channel for selling new services to customers, he noted, as well as a resource to enter other markets as a local telephone competitor.

"The majority of our employees went through the Sprint acquisition of Centel six years ago, so they know what to expect and what to do," McCoy said.