From Communications Workers of America (CWA), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
Aug 7, 2011
Company Refuses to Bargain Seriously, Verizon Proposals Would Take Workers Back Decades
Washington, D.C. — More than 45,000 workers are on strike today at Verizon Communications. Bargaining continues. Since bargaining began on June 22, Verizon has refused to move from a long list of concession demands. As the contract expired, nearly 100 concessionary company proposals remained on the table.
As a result, CWA and IBEW have decided to take the unprecedented step of striking until Verizon stops its Wisconsin-style tactics and starts bargaining seriously.
Even at the 11th hour, as contracts were set to expire, Verizon continued to seek to strip away 50 years of collective bargaining gains for middle class workers and their families.
CWA and IBEW members are prepared to return to work when management demonstrates the willingness to begin bargaining seriously for a fair agreement. If not, CWA and IBEW members and allies will continue the fight.
Verizon financials
- 2011 annualized revenues are $108 billion and annualized net profits are $6 billion.
- Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company and Vodaphone a $10 billion dividend.
- Verizon’s top five executives received compensation of $258 million over the past four years.
The contract covers 45,000 members of CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers from New England to Virginia.
STATEMENT BY CWA
Aug 6, 2011
Washington, D.C. — Following is a statement by Candice Johnson, CWA Communications Director, on contract negotiations between CWA and Verizon. The current contract expires at midnight tonight:
“Negotiations between the Communications Workers of America and Verizon Communications are not moving forward. Contracts covering 45,000 Verizon workers are set to expire at midnight tonight.
Over months of negotiations, there has been no real bargaining by Verizon management. In fact, every major concession demand — more than 100 in all – remains on the table.
Even at the 11th hour, with contracts set to expire, Verizon continues to seek to strip away 50 years of contract gains. Following the game plan of Wisconsin, Verizon is trying to destroy the collective bargaining process by refusing to engage seriously on the issues.
In the few hours left before contract expiration, Verizon can show that it’s serious about bargaining. If not, CWA members and our allies throughout the union movement are ready for the fight.”
Verizon is sitting on big assets – it has $100 billion in revenue and net profits of $6 billion. Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company and Vodaphone a $10 billion dividend. Verizon’s executive compensation is sky-high, and Chairman Ivan Seidenberg is paid 300 times what an average worker earns. The top five company executives were paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the past four years.
The contract covers 35,000 CWA represented workers and 10,000 IBEW-represented workers.
Read updates at www.cwa-union.org/verizon
Media Inquiries
Candice Johnson, CWA Communications, 202-434-1347 (office), 202-415-6566 (cell), cjohnson@cwa-union.org, and Robert Master, CWA District 1, 212-344-2515 (office), 917-657-6483 (cell), rmaster@cwa-union.org
The Underbelly of the Proposed Verizon Strike: Why Customers Should Care
By Bruce Kushnick, Chairman, Teletruth http://www.teletruth.org
Executive Director, New Networks Institute, http://www.newnetworks.com
The Verizon Communications Workers of America (CWA) members are correct in worrying about the future. In the last two decades, there’s been over a 50% decrease in the number of employees-per-line, while there’s been a 100% increase in the Bell companies revenues. And construction in Verizon is down over 53% in the last three years.
However, there’s an another dark side of this discussion that no one wants to talk about — How customers are being affected by staff cuts and slashes in construction budgets. Everyone knows that service has been declining and prices have been increasing, but the real scam is that instead of reinvesting in the networks and staff, Verizon is using the profits to fund excessive executive compensation and pay for massive overseas losses from bad investments.
Some customer examples?
When I called Verizon to pay my phonebill over the telephone, I was told that it would cost an additional $2.50 to use a credit card because Verizon was using another company to take credit card orders. With $67 billion in annual revenues, 227,000 employees, as well as a global presence that extends to the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, you would think that Verizon could take its own credit card payments over the phone.
When a customer’s phone service died last year, he found out that even though we live in a 24-7 world of the Internet, Verizon is closed on Sundays. —- And let’s not talk about the hassles once he wanted service restored. See: http://www.teletruth.org/About/newsletter/SexliesVerizon.htm
When a customer called his Internet Service Provider in New York City to order DSL, she was told that there wasn’t enough copper in her building to give her service. To read about the issues surrounding DSL and broadband see: http://www.newnetworks.com/PRISPPETITIONS.html
And you would think that a strike of workers at Verizon would cost customers more money — “They’ll just raise our rates to pay for keeping staff”. The slap in the face is that even though there’s been over a 50% cut in the employees per-line since Verizon formed in 1984, the prices of services have continually increased. In fact, phone rates have nothing/little to do with the actual cost of service because of a number of regulatory-bam-boozles known as “Deregulation”.
Ironically, this “deregulation’ was granted because Verizon promised to upgrade everyone’s home and office to a fiber-optic service. In Pennsylvania, Verizon charged customers hundreds of dollars for fiber-optic upgrades they will never receive. Half of the state should have been rewired by 2004, including rural and suburban and urban areas equally. See: http://www.newnetworks.com/Libertybellstolen.htm Continue reading