He later served as an apprentice to a cable splicer.

Gary Cochran, 46, a cable splicer, said his crew of 19 men and 1 woman began reporting to a female manager three years ago.

Verizon apparently wanted to deploy cable splicers with greater flexibility.

They said the cuts would affect corporate executives rather than telephone operators or cable splicers.

He worked as a cable splicer for the Louisville phone company, only playing amateur baseball in a church league.

They are cable splicers who repaired telephone lines in Midtown after a crippling gas main explosion in 1998.

Then, his men reported, armed bandits stole the only cable splicer in central Iraq, needed to repair countless vandalized electric lines.

He worked in construction and as a cable splicer for United States Steel and in a business of his own.

Mr. Raymond, a 44-year-old unemployed cable splicer, said he was enraged by the decision and by the cancellation of the trial.

For years he was a high-voltage cable splicer, a job he loved because it meant working outdoors with plenty of freedom and overtime pay.