Telephone Workers Set to Strike At 6 O'Clock Today as Talks Fail; Most Miners to Continue 'Holiday'

WASHINGTON, April 6-With only ten hours remaining before the deadline for a cross-country telephone walkout, Joseph A. Beirne, president of the National Federation of Telephone workers, said tonight "tomorrow morning we strike."

"All our efforts have failed," Berine declared in an address prepared for a Washington area radio broadcast. "Strike action is being taken only as a last resort."

The NFTW leader spoke after all day conferences with Labor Department officials Booking an eleventh-hour agreement to avoid the strike by submitting the issues to arbitration.

Earlier in the day Beirne announced that the Union is willing to "consider" arbitration on an industry-wide basis with all issues at stake.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company has held out for arbitration only on wages, and that only on a local basis between unions and its subsidiaries in the Bell System.

There was no immediate A. T. & T. reaction but Secretary of Labor Lewis B. Schwellenback talked at length with C. F. Craig, vice president of the company.

Apparently the Labor Department was seeking to bring Craig and Berine together fir the first time in the three-months long negotiations to try to get them to agree on an arbitration plan.

The strike of more than 300,000 telephone workers was sent for 6 A.M. Monday.