Local 2336 Members Get Justice, Finally

A decade after Verizon stopped paying members of CWA Local 2336 for additional work they did in the company's Corporate Mail Group, the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated an arbitration award that gave the voice mail clerks retroactive pay.

Now, it's up to Verizon to do the right thing and accept this decision instead of trying to overturn arbitration awards, said CWA District 2 Vice President Ron Collins.

Way back in 1997 Verizon started assigning workers in the Corporate Mail Group extra duties and initially paid them for that work. But before 2000, Verizon stopped paying for the extra work and CWA filed a grievance in 2001.

An arbitrator found that Verizon had violated the contract and a second arbitrator found that workers were due a wage increase plus retroactive pay back to 2001.

Verizon appealed, and a District Court overturned the award, accusing the arbitrator of applying "his own brand of industrial justice." The Appeals Court disagreed and reinstated the arbitrator's decision and award.