Verizon Showdown Calls for New Strike Tactics

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11770/verizon_showdown_calls_for_new_strike_tactics/

Tuesday Aug 2, 2011 11:16 am

By Steve Early


Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen speaks at a rally outside Verizon headquarters in New York City on July 30, 2011. (Photo via Communications Workers of America )

The culture of “no contract, no work” is almost extinct in the United States, where strike activity has reached an all-time low.

Among telephone workers in the northeast, at Verizon and AT&T, this union tradition remains strong, based on successful walkouts by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1998, 2000 and 2004.

In the longest of those struggles, 60,000 CWA and IBEW members struck for four months against healthcare cost shifting at NYNEX, the New York and New England company now known as Verizon (VZ). Only in 2003 did a regional bargaining unit—then 75,000 strong at VZ—stay on the job after contract expiration to avoid being ensnared in a carefully prepared management plan to replace thousands of strikers with contractors,.

On Saturday night, August 6, CWA and IBEW agreements expire in the same unit, now shrunk to 45,000 by buyouts, attrition, contracting out, job elimination and technological change, and the sale of Verizon operations in four states. In this round of bargaining, workers face unacceptable concessions and a tough decision about how to resist them most effectively.

In the words of CWA District 1 legislative/political director Robert Master, “Verizon has put on the table the most aggressive set of contract demands we’ve ever seen,” aimed at turning tens of thousands of secure jobs with good benefits “into lower-wage, much less secure jobs.”

Like General Electric, which just won givebacks from CWA and other unions, Verizon “isn’t under any financial stress,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The company reported $10.2 billion in profits in 2010 and its net income for the first half of this year was $6.9 billion. Over the past four years, Verizon earned nearly $20 billion for its shareholders (a record of profitably used to justify the $258 million spent on salaries, bonuses and stock options for just five of its top executives, including new CEO Lowell McAdam, during the same period).


FULL story at link.

[RC]

1. With that much profit, why are then not plowing it back into upgrading their infrastructure?

You know, like higher speed internet, like most of the rest of the rest of the world already has.

Or would that create too many jobs and delay buying the next 4th home and 2nd private jet?

[luckyleftyme2]

2. go national to all workers

go national to all workers union and non union ask for a sympathy strike. you will be surprised the support you will draw! pick a day of the week that will hurt the most. not a monday or friday but a wed or thurs.
publicize it so the media will get on board. those workers that cannot get a blue flu or personal business day can work a slow down day.
believe me greed will bring them back to the table. 100% of nothing is nutin!