Verizon Communications Inc and two big unions kept talking after a labor contract covering 65,000 workers expired on Saturday and the unions said they made progress toward a deal, averting a strike threat. “We made enough progress on most of the major issues to give the negotiators confidence to continue talking through the night without a strike,” said union spokesman Rand Wilson. “There are still sticking points but they're confident they can reach an agreement” The majority of the Communications Workers of America's 50,000 members and the 15,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers covered by the contract have voted in favor of a strike authorization. Wilson said Verizon relented on major issues including retiree healthcare. Areas in dispute in the talks included job security, outsourcing, employee and retiree health care. Verizon, which has not commented on issues under negotiation, has about 103,000 workers in its telecom unit, which covers residential and small business telephone, broadband and video services. Any large-scale strike would be a blow at a time when Verizon is trying to expand its FiOS high-speed Internet and video service to compete with cable service providers including Time Warner Cable and Cablevision and stem losses in landline subscribers. The deadline came days after Verizon launched its FiOS TVservice in New York City on July 28. The network buildout, for which Verizon is spending $22.9 billion from 2004 through 2010, is labor intensive.
