Verizon headquarters in Manhattan on May 12, 2015.
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Nyc Verizon Communication Inc’s (VZ.N) wireline device workers toward the You can include.S. East Coast have selected to move on strike, if it is required, amid contract negotiations, the trade unions that represent these guys said on Saturday. “They reject management’s harsh concessionary demands”.
The contract set to expire on August 1 affects wire workers as well in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, along with the District of Columbia. A final decision on a strike would come from the the boards of the CWA and the global Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The contract covers employees the nine states from Massachusetts to Virginia who work for Verizon’s wireline business, which provides fixed-line phone services and FiOS Internet service.
Nearly 45,000 workers at Verizon went on strike almost four years ago in August of 2011 for nearly two weeks.
The company’s union-represented employees in the East work under 27 collective bargaining agreements in nine eastern states in the United States and Washington D.C. Verizon’s plans to cut costs by conrolling healthcare and pension-related benefits over a three-year period are at the center of union negotiations.
“Union rallies and strike authorization votes are useless distractions that achieve nothing”, said Verizon representative Rich Young.
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Young said some parts of the contract were dated by more than a decade and has lost its relevance in the telecom industry which is reeling from structural changes and pressure. He also added that the company was training non-union employees who would be able to take up the additional jobs so that customers weren’t disrupted at all even if these employees did go on strike.
