Massive Red Wave Sweeps New York

More than 15,000 Verizon workers and their supporters massed Saturday outside Verizon headquarters in New York City, roaring approval for their bargaining committee and booing the corporate executives who want to take away workers’ pensions, health care, sick days, and holidays, suspend weekend differentials and replace regular pay raises with merit pay.

“These are standards and benefits we’ve won. We’re not going back,” roared CWA International President Larry Cohen. “We’re going to stand and fight.” Joining him on stage was IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill, who vowed that unity at Verizon would force the company to negotiate a fair contract. “Verizon needs a history lesson, and school is in,” Hill said, referring to victory in contract battles of the past.

The huge crowd, stretching for four blocks of Barclay between West Street and Church Street, had ridden buses since midnight the night before from points as far away as southern Virginia, or took the ferry across to Manhattan and walked up. The event was blocks from Ground Zero of the World Trade Center.

CWA Verizon workers had come from as far away as California, and IBEW members had come up from Tampa, Fla., to show their support. A CWA AT&T local from Connecticut was represented, and signs could be seen from the AFT staff union at City University of New York and by TWU in New York.  

The crowd included a group from Local 1101, the only unionized group of Verizon Wireless workers, representing 60 members. Those Verizon Wireless jobs ought to be good union jobs too, and not just 60 among 40,000 union members at Verizon.  

CWA retirees made the trip too, proudly displayed on red shirts. One retiree, Kevin Carey of Annandale, Va., was distributing a flier supporting a bill, introduced by Sen. Jack Reid (D-RI), providing for a 30-hour workweek that increases employment, with “work sharing” compensation that also increases hourly wages. Verizon is demanding just the opposite in bargaining—that we work more for less, much less.

A large contingent of IBEW Verizon members also made the trip from locals in Massachusetts and New Jersey. They cheered wildly when one of the first speakers was Myles Calvey, who directs the IBEW T-6 Verizon council, called for a mass movement of union members across the East Coast. “In fact, it will take every union member on the East Coast to stop Verizon from this attack on the middle class. Our unions are drawing the line here at Verizon.”

The tremendous outpouring of support by members buoyed the spirit of the event and they were fired up by the heat of angry union speakers.

“In all my years negotiating a contact, I’ve never seen the kind of crap that Verizon has put on the table,” said CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton, who invited the CWA and IBEW bargaining committees to the stage. “What they want to do,” he said, holding up the current contract and tearing out pages one by one, “is to throw away 60 years of bargaining."

“We’re not going to let it happen!” he thundered, and the crowd roared its approval. “What they really want to do is to bust your union. They want to gut the middle class and they’re starting with you. Are we going to allow that to happen?”

The crowd response was a deafening “No!” A chant rose up with an epithet to describe Verizon’s proposals and the attitude of the corporate executives who are raking in millions in compensation—$55,000 a day for CEO Ivan Seidenberg—while demanding concessions from workers who have made the company a success. “Bullshit” became a constant refrain.

The rally drew a number of local and area political supporters, including Christine Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council, who exhorted the crowd to “fight to keep your benefits. Verizon is a very profitable corporation, and it’s YOU who have made them profitable.”

New York State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries had the crowd rocking by calling Verizon executives out, vowing to ensure that regulators keep Verizon’s feet to the fire. “The Public Service Commission has jurisdiction over Verizon because it deals in a public service,” he said. “But it is you who create that service, not the corporate executives in that building. They must be held accountable.”

Other speakers included CWA Secretary-Treasurer Annie Hill, New York State AFL-CIO President Dennis Hughes, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, State Senator Diane Savino (formerly of AFSCME DC-37), SEIU 32B-J Secretary-Treasurer Hector Figueroa, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Senate Minority Leader John Sampson, State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, Assemblyman Jim Brennan, Assemblyman Peter Abbate, and Councilman Vincent Gentile.

View video from the rally here, here, and here.