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Campaign Pressures Verizon To Keep Promises to Workers
CWA is stepping up its campaign to persuade Verizon Communications to live up to promises on card check and neutrality it made 11 months ago.
In TV and print ads, CWA questions Verizon’s ability to meet its commitments to customers when it refuses to keep its word to workers.
The TV ads are appearing on network news and morning shows as well as top-rated programs on CNN, CNBC and MSNBC in the New York and Washington, D.C., markets that opinion leaders and company officials monitor.
Print ads have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and The Hill and Roll Call newspapers that cover the U.S. Congress.
The ads point out that many Verizon customers are still waiting for high-speed Internet service because, “instead of attacking the problems, Verizon’s been attacking its own workers.”
On the regulatory front, CWA is alerting state legislators to service quality concerns and Verizon’s misreporting of repairs and problems in New York state, and is urging lawmakers to hold hearings.
CWA is also making sure that state regulators are aware of Verizon’s record of broken promises as the company applies to provide long distance service in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states.
In a filing with the Federal Communica-tions Commission, CWA opposed the bid by Verizon to provide long distance service in Pennsylvania, stressing the company’s poor track record “for honest data reporting to regulators” and its failure to meet performance standards in New York.
Verizon is promising full compliance with all state requirements, but CWA’s experience with the company is further proof that Verizon doesn’t keep its promises, CWA said.
In a letter to CWA local presidents, CWA President Morton Bahr said the union has put Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg on notice that “CWA will do whatever is necessary” to represent workers who want a union voice.
Bahr recounted the company’s “outrageous and unsupportable position” in dragging out the arbitration process at Verizon Wireless and said the company, in violation of federal labor law, is trying to interrogate workers who helped colleagues at Verizon Information Services (VIS) sign up for CWA representation.
Verizon’s objective “is to contain CWA where we now represent the workforce and to do whatever they can, no mater the cost, to try to stop us from growing in the newer lines of business,” Bahr wrote.
CWA’s response, whether at Wireless and Information Services, or in bargaining with the former GTE Southwest unit, will continue to be clear, strong and consistent, so that management recognizes that “when they beat up on any of our brothers and sisters, they take us all on,” Bahr said.
Rallies and demonstrations in Baltimore, New York, Denver, Dallas, Cleveland and other communities got Verizon’s attention in June, with CWA members, Jobs with Justice activists and AFL-CIO supporters joining public demonstrations against the company’s illegal and unfair tactics.
Meanwhile, Verizon continues to block workers at VIS and Wireless from gaining CWA representation, harassing and threatening workers, delaying proceedings and filing endless lawsuits and legal actions — all to avoid honoring the contract it signed last August, said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen.
Some 80 percent of the 1,600 VIS workers from New York to Virginia have signed cards calling for CWA representation, but the company continues to stand in their way.
Addressing the CWA convention in Minneapolis, Brooke Cavanaugh, a Yellow Pages sales representative in Baltimore, told delegates how VIS workers have built overwhelming support for CWA and asked for their help in winning their fight at Verizon. “Help us send a message to Verizon,” she said, adding, that information services workers want Verizon to “let us in, let us in, let us in.”
In TV and print ads, CWA questions Verizon’s ability to meet its commitments to customers when it refuses to keep its word to workers.
The TV ads are appearing on network news and morning shows as well as top-rated programs on CNN, CNBC and MSNBC in the New York and Washington, D.C., markets that opinion leaders and company officials monitor.
Print ads have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and The Hill and Roll Call newspapers that cover the U.S. Congress.
The ads point out that many Verizon customers are still waiting for high-speed Internet service because, “instead of attacking the problems, Verizon’s been attacking its own workers.”
On the regulatory front, CWA is alerting state legislators to service quality concerns and Verizon’s misreporting of repairs and problems in New York state, and is urging lawmakers to hold hearings.
CWA is also making sure that state regulators are aware of Verizon’s record of broken promises as the company applies to provide long distance service in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states.
In a filing with the Federal Communica-tions Commission, CWA opposed the bid by Verizon to provide long distance service in Pennsylvania, stressing the company’s poor track record “for honest data reporting to regulators” and its failure to meet performance standards in New York.
Verizon is promising full compliance with all state requirements, but CWA’s experience with the company is further proof that Verizon doesn’t keep its promises, CWA said.
In a letter to CWA local presidents, CWA President Morton Bahr said the union has put Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg on notice that “CWA will do whatever is necessary” to represent workers who want a union voice.
Bahr recounted the company’s “outrageous and unsupportable position” in dragging out the arbitration process at Verizon Wireless and said the company, in violation of federal labor law, is trying to interrogate workers who helped colleagues at Verizon Information Services (VIS) sign up for CWA representation.
Verizon’s objective “is to contain CWA where we now represent the workforce and to do whatever they can, no mater the cost, to try to stop us from growing in the newer lines of business,” Bahr wrote.
CWA’s response, whether at Wireless and Information Services, or in bargaining with the former GTE Southwest unit, will continue to be clear, strong and consistent, so that management recognizes that “when they beat up on any of our brothers and sisters, they take us all on,” Bahr said.
Rallies and demonstrations in Baltimore, New York, Denver, Dallas, Cleveland and other communities got Verizon’s attention in June, with CWA members, Jobs with Justice activists and AFL-CIO supporters joining public demonstrations against the company’s illegal and unfair tactics.
Meanwhile, Verizon continues to block workers at VIS and Wireless from gaining CWA representation, harassing and threatening workers, delaying proceedings and filing endless lawsuits and legal actions — all to avoid honoring the contract it signed last August, said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen.
Some 80 percent of the 1,600 VIS workers from New York to Virginia have signed cards calling for CWA representation, but the company continues to stand in their way.
Addressing the CWA convention in Minneapolis, Brooke Cavanaugh, a Yellow Pages sales representative in Baltimore, told delegates how VIS workers have built overwhelming support for CWA and asked for their help in winning their fight at Verizon. “Help us send a message to Verizon,” she said, adding, that information services workers want Verizon to “let us in, let us in, let us in.”