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About 40,000 Unionized Verizon Workers Walk Off the Job (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the walk-off-the-job dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: In one of the largest U.S. strikes in recent years, nearly 40,000 Verizon workers walked off the job on Wednesday after contract talks hit an impasse. The event got a boost as U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders joined them at a Brooklyn rally ahead of the New York primary next week. The strike was called by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that jointly represent employees with such jobs as customer services representatives and network technicians in Verizon Communications Inc's traditional wireline phone operations. The strike could affect service in Verizon's Fios Internet, telephone and TV services businesses across several U.S. East Coast states, including New York, Massachusetts and Virginia. Verizon and the unions have been talking since last June over the company's plans to cut healthcare and pension-related benefits over a three-year period. The workers have been without a contract since its agreement expired in August. Issues include healthcare, offshoring call center jobs, temporary job relocations and pensions.

8 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. No problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Couldn't affect customer service in any way, it's impossible to do worse.

    1. Re:No problem by Bloody+Bastard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Be careful of what you ask for.

    2. Re: No problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Perhaps, but we need more of this. People standing up to large corporate interests who just want to keep cutting jobs, pay, and benefits is a good thing. That so many working people are brainwashed to believe otherwise is a tragedy.

      Corporations gain bargaining power by (allegedly) shareholders pooling capital. It's very hard to find someone who'll argue that corporations shouldn't act in their own interests. Why is it therefore wrong for labor to do the same? It isn't, and it's way past time for workers to figure that out.

      We've all endured more injustices than what started the American Revolution in the first place--those injustices then being both government and corporate just like today (The Boston Tea Party was a revolt against corporate welfare, not against taxes. Go look it up.) Yet we can't even fathom actually doing something about it. This needs to change.

      I wish these workers good luck. They're gonna need it with all the corporate media and paid shills everywhere about to be against them.

    3. Re: No problem by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People standing up to large corporate interests who just want to keep cutting jobs, pay, and benefits is a good thing.

      How is striking going to convince a corporation to stop offshoring and automating jobs? It seems to me that it will convince them to do more. Look at what UAW strikes did to Detroit.

    4. Re: No problem by lorenlal · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The UAW strikes didn't cause the outflow of employment from Detroit. It was a consequence of NAFTA cheapening the import cost of goods made in Mexico.

      Since it's really off topic, I'd prefer not debating the merits and problems of NAFTA here. Yes, union negotiating and poor management did contribute. But the union strikes weren't the single cause of that employment offshoring.

  2. Re:No More Clintons, ty by Noah+Haders · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Verizon CEO ripped Bernie in a FB post, about his "contemptible" platform of trying to make business decisions into a moral issue. Probably the wrong response at the wrong time.

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/...

  3. Re:It's time to rise up a be counted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think a fair deal can be reached, the management clearly needs to be sent a signal.

    Can you fear me now?

  4. You can vote with your wallet here. by wernst · · Score: 5, Informative
    Verizon made an overall profit of $4.04 Billion in the third quarter of 2015, reported Forbes (which I am not linking to.) That's not income. That's profit.

    I can certainly understand that businesses, in lean times, need to take steps to keep afloat to avoid bankruptcy, but when you're close to earning $12B in profit a year, cutting pension and healthcare benefits is just mean-spirited. Verizon is destroying the middle class that it is hoping will buy its FIOS and wireless services, and that's both bad for business and bad for the country, and I don't want to support those sorts of actions.

    Verizon wireless did a similarly mean-spirited thing last year and moved thousands of customer support jobs from "expensive" SoCal to "cheap" Kentucky, putting a few of my pals out of a job, actually. Despite good wireless service, I cancelled my Verizon Wireless accounts immediately, and when Retention called to ask why, I told them exactly why, asked the caller where they worked, and advised them to start looking for a new job because their position was surely going to move to a cheaper area of the country too.

    Isn't $12B in profits ENOUGH? Vote with your wallets folks, and be sure to tell Verizon why you're leaving.