South Florida union members go on strike at AT&T. How will this affect your service? [telecom]

Historical notes:

We don't hear of labor strife as much as we used to. Labor unions in the U.S. have declined in power and influence.

Years ago bitter massive strikes were more common, including in the telephone industry. It had far more impact in the past when the system was less automated(1). Indeed, in the

1950s, many calls were still handled manually by operators, so when there was a strike, there was essentially no service. Even in dial locations, long distance still required an operator in most places in the 1950s, so there was no long distance service.

In 1946, the CIO(2) went out on strike. The LIFE article below includes a photo of a large room filled with empty switchboards.

In 1947, 350,000 workers of AT&T went out on strike. LIFE covered it:

(In the same issue, on pg 24 Western Electric bragged about the fast restoration of a fire-destroyed central office).

General Telephone, an 'independent' telephone company, also had labor troubles. In 1973, Ohio workers took out a full page ad explaining their stance:

Some strike were bitter with vandalism of telephone company property. In 1963, GTE took out the following ad in Florida:

(lower left side of frame)

Telephone strikes go back 100 years. Here is a New England labor dispute in April 1919.

(upper left)

In all of the above, you can read through the entire publication. The old ads are particularly interesting.

1. Recently I had to deal with Verizon. Extremely hard to reach an actual person, their automated front end did its best to block me. Very frustrated. I don't understand how a business expects to thrive when they treat customers so rottenly. But I guess since most businesses do so nowadays, they can get away with it. (Comcast is no better.)
2. Congress of Industrial Organizations, which was later combined with the American Federation of Labor to form the AFL-CIO. See (Mod.)