Grammy Award Winning Musician, Actor, Writer Steve Earle Boosts Workers' Fight at Verizon

Washington, D.C. – Thousands of Verizon employees heard a message from Steve Earle last week calling out Verizon Communications for hitting up workers for another $20,000 a year in compensation cuts while posting another record earnings quarter this year.

As part of Shareholder Spring, nearly 1,000 workers, students and progressive activists demonstrated inside and outside Verizon’s annual meeting on May 3 in Huntsville, Ala., demanding that the company stop its assault on customers, employees and American taxpayers. The company has earned the nickname “VeriGreedy” for its emphasis on corporate greed.

Check out this video http://www.verigreedy.com/shareholder-meeting-video from the shareholder meeting, featuring Earle’s great song, “God is God.” Earle is the three-time Grammy winner who is a strong supporter of workers fighting for economic and political justice, among other progressive stands. Check out more at www.steveearle.com.

Verizon is a $100 billion company, very profitable company that won’t bargain fairly with 45,000 union workers who want to hold on to the American Dream.

The company’s demands for $20,000 in annual givebacks from workers amounts to $1 billion a year. And Verizon will be getting $1billion from consumers since it started charging customers a $30 fee to upgrade their phones.

And despite its billions in profits, Verizon dodges taxes and has sent thousands of American jobs overseas. It didn’t pay a dime in federal corporate income taxes from 2008-2010, and in fact, got a nearly $1 billion tax rebate over that period.

Workers represented by the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers have been bargaining for a fair contract for nearly a year, pushing back against the company’s demands to gut retirement security, health care and other benefits for employees, retirees and workers who get hurt on the job. For more information, go to www.verigreedy.com.

About Verizon:

Verizon, the 16th largest corporation in America, made $22.5 billion in profits over the past four years while paying its top five executives $283 million. It recently gave CEO Lowell McAdam a big increase in compensation to $23.1 million a year. McAdam is paid more than 400 times the wages of an average Verizon worker.

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Contact: Candice Johnson, CWA Communications 202-434-1168 or cjohnson@cwa-union.org