Verizon workers face down corporate greed

[Omaha Steve]

http://peoplesworld.org/verizon-workers-face-down-corporate-greed/

by: John Wojcik
July 29 2011



NEW YORK - Verizon Communications, which raked in $19.5 billion in profits over the last four years and paid its top five executives $258 million during that period, is demanding drastic givebacks from its 45,000 unionized workers on the East Coast.

Verizon, despite its status as one of the most profitable American companies, is demanding the concessions across the board - in workers' health care, benefits and pensions.

Unions are fighting the demands for concessions, pointing not just to company profits but to what they say has been unprecedented growth in the company's Verizon Wireless subsidiary, its cell phone operation and in the company's Internet services.

35,000 members of the Communications Workers of America yesterday voted overwhelmingly to authorize CWA leaders to call a strike as early as Aug. 7, when the current contract expires. CWA reported that 91 percent of the workers voted in favor of the strike authorization.

The other union involved, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents several thousand additional Verizon workers, also voted the same day to authorize a strike.

In addition to benefits and wages, a key issue for both unions is the refusal of Verizon to allow the unions to organize at its rapidly growing Verizon Wireless subsidiary. Most of Verizon's unionized employees currently work on phone landlines that the company, they say, is trying to dump, or in FiOS TV, which needs little maintenance after initial installation.

FULL story and video at link.

[givemebackmycountry]

1. Thanks Steve. This is my industry and my job.

I don't work for Verizon, but I do work for a company that relies on Verizon to fix their shit to get OUR customers up and working again.
All my right wing co-workers keep spewing the same shit, "Oh, we couldn't get Verizon to do what they were supposed to do, because of THE UNION".
I just laugh at them.
After all, what the FUCK do right wing assholes know about a UNION?

If it wasn't for the IBEW, my 80 year old mother would be living with me.
Instead, she lives proudly on her own and recognizes that it's the UNIONS that allow her to do so.

Thanks brother.
Hope all is well with you.


:toast: :pals:

[ellisonz]

2. Strike.

[The Doctor.]

3. I talked to a Verizon union guy for an hour or so.

He said that Verizon had them doing nothing. He was a fiber optic cable layer. He told me that he and his crew were among the most efficient at getting FIOS wired in the area. Always under cost and on time. This area is starving for fiber optic service. It's a gold mine for Verizon because there is no real competition. He said that he goes to work and basically cleans the same truck day in and day out.

We speculated together that this was Verizon trying to put the union on the defensive and take away their bargaining power. Negotiations are supposed to take place by Fall.

I'm thinking this is Verizon trying to position its stock for a big spike later this year. This would be worth following.

[Omaha Steve]

4. Kick