Verizon says the criminal activity has accelerated since the strike began on April 13th.
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The company says it usually records about six incidents of damage to Verizon equipment and fiber lines each year.
Since almost 40,000 union members walked off the job at Verizon two weeks ago, the telecom giant has been scrambling to keep its systems up and running, but it seems to be falling behind in one critical area: reputation.
Specific incidents mentioned by Verizon include “Sliced fiber optic cabling” at a network facility in New Jersey that cut off services to customers including police and fire departments and an incident in MA where phone services were cut off for 16 hours. News releases are also available through an RSS feed.
Now in their second week of the strike, workers who have been without a contract since August 2015 are in a contract dispute over a proposed bargaining agreement, pressing for improvements to the proposed medical and retirement benefits as well as increased job security. “No one deserves to spend 21 days on the road away from their families”, she said, commending the workers for ensuring that future employees in the industry will also have fair wages.
About 800 workers locally in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers went on strike – among about 39,000 along the East Coast – after contract negotiations broke down over disagreements about outsourcing call centers, worker relocations and retiree health care costs.
“You are fighting. You are fighting for fair wages for good work”.
“The Verizon workers have been very cooperative”, he said.
Whether or not this strike bears any fruit, it should serve as a stark reminder that workers and the unions that represent them will not take abuse by larger corporations lying down.
“As of now, we’re not able to connect the two”, a Verizon spokesperson said in an email to Foxnews.com about any alleged link. “We’ve all been here a long time”. “Nobody wanted a strike, but if it’s a last resort, we gotta do what we gotta do”.
Thirty-six thousand Verizon workers went out on strike April 13.
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The union steward for the Norfolk area, Eddie High, said, “we’re not asking for anything insane we just want to keep the same benefits we have now”. Striking Verizon workers have been picketing Verizon Wireless stores and urging customers to boycott the wireless branch of the company, as well. “They’re not supplying customers with the needed facilities for their houses”, said Tom Crawford, CWA Local 13000 Regional vice president.
