With 1 Day to Go, Verizon Presses Contract Demands

With the clock on a fair contract for 43,000 Verizon East workers running out at midnight, Saturday Aug. 6, the company has refused to budge from retrogressive bargaining proposals that it knows would be soundly rejected by CWA and IBEW-represented workers.

Informational picketing by Local 13000 in Valley Forge, Pa., brought short a Verizon training session for replacement workers ("scabs").

Below: Verizon is "trying to take away the benefits that we've bargained over the last few decades," Local 1111 President Sean McAvoy told WETM in Elmira, N.Y.

Since bargaining began, Verizon has sought to destroy contract gains bargained by workers over nearly 50 years of bargaining. Among other things on its long list of demands, management wants to freeze the pension plan for covered workers and eliminate it entirely for all others, dramatically increase health care costs for active workers and retirees, and base wage increases on subjective evaluations by supervisors.

Last week, union members at Verizon let management know that they were determined to fight back against Verizon's greed, voting 91 percent to authorize a strike, if necessary, to get the company to bargain a fair contract that reflects workers' contribution to their company's success. Verizon earnings for the first half of 2011 reached nearly $6.9 billion, more than double what it made during the first 6 months of 2010.

Throughout Districts 1 and 2-13, CWAers at Verizon have intensified mobilization activities, taking their message for a fair contract into their workplaces, to the media, and the public.

In Richmond, Va., members of Local 2201 are conducting information picketing daily at company facilities in the city, wearing red to work, and conducting organized "stand-ups" at their workplaces. Tonight, members of the local are joining hundreds of other workers across the district in a mass hand-billing of customers at Olive Garden, Red Lobster and other restaurants that are owned by Clarence Otis, a member of the Verizon board which approved giving Verizon Chairman Ivan Seidenberg and top executives $258 million over the past four years. CWAers in District 1 will also be taking part in the hand-billing of Otis-owned restaurants.

In Valley Forge, Pa., Local 13000 members set up picket lines to disrupt management classes for training replacement workers ("scabs"). The union presence persuaded a Verizon retiree who had been doing the training to think otherwise and the training was canceled according to Local 13000 Unit 22 President Rich Sibley.

In Elmira, N.Y., Local 1111 members are taking their message into the workplace every day, wearing red t-shirts, and conducting informational picketing at Verizon facilities. They are also reaching out to the local news media to get the true story out to the public. "It's unfortunate, but it seems like it's an attack on the middle class," explained Local President Sean McAvoy. "They are trying to take away the benefits that we've bargained for over past decades." Click here to view his interview.

Keep the pressure on Verizon by sending a strong "fair contract now" message to new company CEO Lowell McAdam at www.cwa-union.org/verizon. Sign up for Unity@Verizon updates at the website or via your cell phone by texting "mobilize" to 49484. Check out workers' Facebook page at www.facebook.com/UnityatVerizon2011.