Union shows, consumers don’t, at LV session on Sprint merger

Friday, April 7, 2000 | 10:57 a.m.

To MCI WorldCom executive James Lewis, what wasn't stated at a Thursday workshop on the company's proposed merger with Sprint spoke volumes about the public's perception of the plan.

No one came out against the merger. In fact, few said much of anything about the $129 billion plan to join the nation's No. 2 and No. 3 long-distance telephone companies, which already has been approved by eight of 24 states.

"We didn't hear consumers come out and raise questions about the merger," said Lewis, the senior vice president of western public policy for MCI WorldCom in San Francisco.

But the hour-long session did give Sprint employees represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers a forum to air their own concerns about how the company is serving the public and about their dislike for two incentive programs they say are geared more toward selling new products than fixing old ones when they're broken.

Lewis said he has been aware of the IBEW's relationship with Sprint -- characterized as cordial by the company, but rocky by the union. But he also figures disagreements between the union and Sprint will be resolved and those issues won't play a big role in the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada's consideration of the merger next month.

PUC Chairman Don Soderberg, who presided over the meeting, said he wasn't surprised that comments centered more on union perceptions than on whether the MCI WorldCom-Sprint deal should be consummated.

PUC officials have said the proposed merger would not change telephone rates for Nevada consumers. Sprint is the dominant local phone company in Las Vegas and its Sprint PCS affiliate is a fast-growing wireless phone operation in Las Vegas and other markets.

Representatives of the Nevada Development Authority and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce spoke in favor of the merger. NDA President Somer Hollingsworth said the proposed merger would put Southern Nevada on a faster track toward attracting high-technology companies that would use the merged companies' communications resources.

But about seven other speakers, led by the IBEW's attorney, David Gzesh, detailed how repair personnel are overworked in the Las Vegas market, how personnel in out-of-state call centers are of little help to Las Vegas customers because they don't know the area or the operation and how customer service representatives are trained to make sales, and do that instead of helping people who just want equipment repaired.

They also were critical of Sprint's sales performance and technician performance plans -- two incentive programs initiated in 1998 to improve productivity. The employees looked at the programs as a means of getting rid of some of them and the merger as a way of shipping off jobs to states where the union isn't as strong.

Lou Emmert, general manager of Sprint in Las Vegas, said only three of 200 employees have been fired for not meeting performance standards since 1998 and she insisted that it costs the company more money to find and train new employees than it does to keep the ones it has.

Emmert also said since 1993, Sprint has added 145 employees in Las Vegas, an indication that jobs aren't heading out of state as the union alleges.

Soderberg said testimony from Thursday's meeting would be transcribed for other PUC commissioners to review. Written testimony from Sprint, MCI WorldCom, the PUC staff and the consumer advocate's office and intervenors, including the union, is to be filed later this month and a hearing will be set in May.

Another key milestone occurs April 28 when MCI WorldCom shareholders vote on the merger proposal.

Utility commissions in eight states -- Delaware, Florida, Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi -- already have approved the merger.