Members Rally From W. Va. To N.H. as Verizon East Bargaining Begins

CWA members at Verizon demonstrated up and down the East Coast on Wednesday as bargaining began. Pictured are members of CWA Local 1104 (top) in Garden City, N.Y., and members of Local 2201 in Richmond, Va.

Negotiations got underway Wednesday with Verizon Communications covering about 35,000 CWA members from Virginia to New England, and another 10,000 members of the IBEW. The current contract expires at 12:01 a.m. on Aug. 7. Thousands of CWA members participated in mass pickets from Virginia to New Hampshire.

Bargaining is being led by CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton in the metro New York area and in Philadelphia by CWA Vice Presidents Ron Collins, District 2, and Ed Mooney, District 13. Key issues include quality jobs and health care.

As talks began, CWA members mobilized in locations up and down the East Coast. Click here for photos and mobilization updates.

Collins said union workers want a contract that will "protect good union jobs and give members the opportunity to grow along with the company. In recent years, this company has turned its back on its employees. This company that we built together has taken its profits and headed off in new directions, to new products and technologies, and left behind the very workers that are responsible for its success."

Mooney said, "Now is the time to put our differences aside and focus on what we have in common. We need to use our collective strength to benefit each other and not work against one another. Collectively, we are one company — voice, data, video and wireless. Only by working together as one company will we all be successful."

Shelton said Verizon "cannot keep claiming surplus after surplus while hiring more contractors every day. It is not fair to employees to tell them there are too many of them, but that you need contractors to do their work. It's not even good business."