Some 39,000 landline and cable workers have been doing their jobs without a contract since August, union leaders say.
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– Yesterday, almost 40,000 of Verizon’s wireline employees across the Northeast United States went on strike, demanding that the telecommunications company reach a labor agreement with their unions, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). Workers say the company is looking to freeze pensions, make it easier to fire employees and rely more heavily on contract workers. They had trained thousands of non-union employees over the past years to ensure no disruption in services.
“We didn’t want a strike, we told them that”, said Don Trementozzi, president of CWA Local 1400.
Sanders’ opponent, Hillary Clinton, released a statement Wednesday supporting the striking workers and calling on the company to “come back to the bargaining table with a fair offer for their workers”. The reason I ask is this morning at 6am EDT 36,000 Verizon workers walked off the job in protest of outsourcing of work to countries such the Philippines, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
He said the distinction between Verizon’s land-line business and its wireless cellular business is artificial because both networks depend on the same local switching stations in cities and towns all over MA.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) actually spoke to workers striking in Buffalo, N.Y. They include customer service employees, installers, repairmen and woman and service workers.
“Contrary to Sen. Sanders’s contention, our proposals do not call for mass layoffs or shipping jobs overseas”.
“Unfortunately, union leaders have their own agenda rooted in the past and are ignoring today’s digital realities”, Marc Reed, Verizon’s chief administrative officer, said.
Local 2205 has 700 members and just a handful crossed the picket line Wednesday, Rogers said. “If I miss my appointment, they charge me”, she said.
In Philadelphia, about a hundred striking workers took to the streets near the company’s headquarters and chanted, “Scabs, go home!” at non-union replacement workers. He urged members to remain strong during the strike since that was the only way to put pressure on the company during contract talks.
The strike primarily affects landline phone and Internet businesses.
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But that’s not what Verizon spokesman Eric Wilkens says.
