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CWA Fights for Compensation, Health Care at VIS
As talks neared the Oct. 8 contract expiration, CWA bargainers were pressing hard for a fair agreement covering more than 300 workers at Verizon Information Services in New York.
Members voted overwhelmingly - by 94 percent - to authorize a strike if a fair settlement cannot be reached. The VIS workers are sales and non-sales employees who provide print and online directory services and other information.
CWA Representative Pat Telesco said the parties remained very far apart on several key issues. VIS is demanding changes in health care coverage that would double what workers now pay for health care, plus give the company the ability to cut benefits during the contract term if it wished.
VIS also wants to take away the fleet cars that sale representatives drive on the job, substituting an allowance system that would reimburse reps for only a third of the cost involved in supplying a car for company business.
On sales compensation, VIS wants to maintain complete control over setting commission rates and is insisting on complete flexibility to change the commission plan whenever it wants. The CWA bargaining committee reminded VIS that "it has never been our intention during these entire negotiations to reach an agreement that would allow the company to change the sales compensation plan during the life of the agreement."
Members voted overwhelmingly - by 94 percent - to authorize a strike if a fair settlement cannot be reached. The VIS workers are sales and non-sales employees who provide print and online directory services and other information.
CWA Representative Pat Telesco said the parties remained very far apart on several key issues. VIS is demanding changes in health care coverage that would double what workers now pay for health care, plus give the company the ability to cut benefits during the contract term if it wished.
VIS also wants to take away the fleet cars that sale representatives drive on the job, substituting an allowance system that would reimburse reps for only a third of the cost involved in supplying a car for company business.
On sales compensation, VIS wants to maintain complete control over setting commission rates and is insisting on complete flexibility to change the commission plan whenever it wants. The CWA bargaining committee reminded VIS that "it has never been our intention during these entire negotiations to reach an agreement that would allow the company to change the sales compensation plan during the life of the agreement."