AT&T and Union Reach Tentative Pacts for 2 Units

AT&T announced this weekend that it had reached tentative three-year contracts with a union representing more than 13,000 workers in its Midwest division and an additional 5,700 workers at a unit specializing in major corporate accounts.

The union, the Communications Workers of America, applauded the agreements, saying they did not contain the deep concessions many American companies are demanding.

In a statement about the tentative settlements, AT&T said: “The three-year agreements include wage increases in each year and a modest pension increase. Health care benefits remain among the best in the country.”

The union released a statement that said the tentative contract for workers in the Midwest “provides for wage increases, improvements in employment security and improvements in work and job issues, limits on forced overtime and changes to unfair attendance policies.”

The union said it would not disclose the percentage of the raises because it had not yet explained details to its members. Candice Johnson, a union spokeswoman, said ratification of the contract was expected in a few weeks.

The union’s Midwest division issued a statement that praised the tentative deal and said its negotiating team had made “some real improvements for our members and held back most of the company’s plans to take away hard-fought gains we had won over the years.”

In recent months, the union held several protests over what it called AT&T’s push to shift more health insurance costs to union members.

AT&T and the communications workers said they were still seeking to reach new contracts for three other divisions, including AT&T West, the former Pacific Bell, which has 18,000 union members in California and Nevada. The union is also seeking to reach a new deal with AT&T East in Connecticut, with 4,000 members.

Contracts for those two units expired on April 7, as was the case at AT&T Midwest and at AT&T Corp., the division handling big corporate accounts, like Internet services.

The company and union are also seeking to negotiate a contract for 24,000 AT&T workers in the Southeast — their contract expires on Aug. 4. Because the old Baby Bells had separate union agreements, the various regional union contracts often have different expiration dates.

In contrast to the talks involving AT&T, Verizon’s negotiations with its two main unions — the communications workers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — have dragged on more than a year.

On Thursday, the unions asked the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to provide a mediator to help the stalled negotiations. The two unions represent roughly 45,000 Verizon workers from New England to Virginia.

Last August, those employees went on strike for two weeks, before returning to work under the terms of their old contract, which expired on Aug. 6.

Union officials said at the time that they had called the strike because they felt Verizon was not taking them seriously and because the company was seeking large concessions, including a pension freeze for current workers, fewer sick days and far larger employee contributions toward health coverage.

Separately, the Communications Workers of America announced on Saturday that Seth Rosen, the vice president in charge of the union’s District 4, covering Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, drowned in an accident on Friday in North Carolina. They said Mr. Rosen, 55, who also oversaw the union’s organizing efforts, died when he was swept away by the undertow at Ocracoke, part of the Outer Banks.

Calling the death a “tragic loss,” Larry Cohen, the union’s president, said, “His commitment to every aspect of our union life cannot be matched.”

Ms. Johnson, the spokeswoman, said, “Seth Rosen laid out the goal that every worker would be better off financially at the end of this contract than they’d be at the beginning.”