Verizon mechanic Anthony Vitiello and others rally outside Verizon in Newark, N.J., on Wednesday.
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Almost 40,000 employees are striking, including a group in Boston that picketed outside Verizon’s offices in Government Center.
This is the third strike since 2000.
Tonas said the CWA has been working with Verizon since August 2015, when their last labor contract expired, but no agreement has been reached yet and about 39,000 workers have been working without a contract.
For Verizon employee Jeff Cringan, there was no hesitation that he would join the strike against the company where he has worked for 24 years.
Union workers have been offered a 6 percent wage increase, but have rejected Verizon’s insistence on health insurance and pension cuts for active and retired workers in the new contract, according to the CWA.
The striking wireline workers include customer service and network technicians in the company’s traditional wireline phone operations. Credit: KLCC ” It’s regrettable that union leaders have called a strike, a move that hurts all of our employees. The company has said that health care issues need to be addressed for retirees and current workers because medical costs have grown and that it wants “greater flexibility” to manage its workers.
Cringan, who was picketing outside of the Fitchburg facility on Main Street and is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2325, said this is about Verizon taking advantage of its workers.
“It’s just very, very scary for everybody”, said Bohan.
“We will be there for our customers”, said Young.
But some customers said the strike was affecting them. He says “unfortunately, they have been unwilling to negotiate in good faith and have now called this job action”. And Verizon is asking workers to work out of state, away from their homes, for months at a time.
“They say, ‘We need to forget the past and concentrate on the future.’ Which is to say that we need to give everything back that we have earned in making this company incredibly successful”, Rowle said.
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“Today, their still spirits are up”, said John Mudie, Executive Vice President of CWA Local 1122, about the picketers in Getzville as they began their second day of demonstrations. “If someone needs to talk to a representative live about an issue, teams of additional non-union Verizon employees will be deployed to handle customer needs”, Mudge said. Verizon Communications Inc. has a total workforce of more than 177,000 employees. They have said contract negotiations have been unsuccessful.
