The picket lines are up. This past weekend 45,000 Verizon workers on the East Coast, represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), went on strike. The cause of the strike was the company’s attempts to win massive concessions from the unions. Verizon argued that the employees should give up gains they had won over many years of struggle and negotiation in previous contract fights.
As the Wall Street Journal put it, “Verizon Communications Inc. is seeking some of the biggest concessions in years from its unions.” Demands include the weakening of health-care benefits, cuts in pensions, reduced job security, and elimination of paid holidays such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This despite the fact that the company reported billions in profit last year, and that, in the words of New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, “Verizon’s top five executives received a total of $258 million in compensation, including stock options, over the last four years.” The unions argue that Verizon has made some $20 billion in profit in the same time period, and Citizens for Tax Justice has pointed out that the company has done so while paying little to nothing in corporate income taxes.
Without a doubt, this is a conflict of national significance. As Bob Master, CWA District 1 legislative and political director, explained Wednesday in a conference call with supporters,
MoreThis is an enormously profitable company, which we believe is trying to take advantage of an anti-union environment and, in a sense, to replicate at a giant private-sector corporation what the governors of Ohio, New Jersey, and Wisconsin have been trying to do to the public sector. Our members feel very strongly that we need to draw a line here.
18 comments:
I'm sure Verizon is making its profits from the wireless side of the business and not the land line side. The workers striking are from the land line side of the business, which is bleeding money, not making profits. Verizon like everyone else is struggling or going to struggle with the cost of health care and pensions with the Baby Boomers all hitting retirement. It is going to be up to the workers in both public and private jobs to save for your own retirement. Pensions will soon be a thing of the past. The workers need to realize that it doesn't make sense for a company like Verizon to hang on to a part of its business that is losing money. Soon land lines will go the way VCR and 8 track tapes.
You union scumbags out there are on strike for the rest of your life!
Hold tough Verizon! Starve them out!
Verizon is making a ton of profits and on the backs of union workers. It was fine when they were hiring them and offering them a retirement package that looked like you could actually retire one day. Bottom line is they are maybe not making the same percentage of profits but enough to award upper end executives HUGE salaries and bonus, Now that Anti Union Fever has hit the country they see it as an excellent opportunity, to give the worker the smelly end of the stick, and to make sure the worker is always struggling to get by so that they have them by the reproductive organs.
Idiots! who do you think services the cell phone towers?! UNION MEMBERS. Who do you think is fighting to prevent more jobs being shipped overseas? UNION MEMBERS. they are not asking for more-just the same contract they have had for years. Verizon is killing the middle class and most of you are too blind to see them pitting the middle class against each other. You should support the CWA and IBEW fight against verizon cuz they are trying to open up more decent paying jobs with benefits for you as well, instead of letting them be outsourced.
Unfortunately the unions ARE the reason a lot of jobs are outsourced 10:20. Why wouldn't a company have work done outside of the united states if it cost them only a fraction of the price and they don't have to deal with the unions?
10:20 AM
Just about every company in the U.S. has laid off or downsized in some way. Hence, 14 million unemployed.
Call us idiots all you want. Only proves and strengthens our opinions of you.
A non-union employee can climb a cell tower just as well as an union member can. Only cheaper and faster.
Unions are destroying this country one job at a time. I left my last job because all of the knuckleheads that voted a union in. They are now in worse shape and with less pay. Each one I talk to regrets bringing them in. Unions are criminal organizations that do nothing for the working man/woman except cost them money. Jobs are headed overseas BECAUSE of unions. Unions contribute NOTHING to keeping jobs in the US.
I can't believe all these NEGATIVE COMMENTS!
Would it make a difference if you knew it is the LAND LINE BUSINESS that funded, and continues to, the WIRELESS SIDE OF THE BUSINESS and it's the LAND LINE BUSINESS that funds the FIBER NETWORK that's being built and will maintain it.
Is it wrong for the people that make the investment in successful lines of business to expect to share in the profits ESPECIALLY WHEN THE CEO's ARE. These same people certainly suffered through the bad times when all the profits they helped make were taken from them and given to other lines of businesses.
I try very hard to understand some of the negative comments but quite frankly I just can't get my head that far up my a$$.
11:29 AM
Might I suggest you take off your hard hat first?
how many local businesses have the unions killed?
the ones that come to mind are
Dresser Wayne
Crown Cork and Seal
Campbells Soup (iirc)
Safeway
Superfresh (didn't strike but cost too much to be competitive)
Dupont in seaford (its a shell of what it used to be)
post office(ok so we are only losing a few locations on the shore)
how many people lost jobs last time verizon went on strike?
get ready for more
I often ask myself when I read comments on this blog, who actually deserves a good job with decent pay and benefits? It doesn't matter the subject or job (from Verizon workers to teachers to guys building houses to doctors and nurses) the commenters on this sight always complain of workers being lazy, inefficient, over-paid, too entitled, spoiled, and someone else can always do the job cheaper and faster. Will someone please tell me who actually deserves a decent salary? Is there anyone out there who actually does a good job and earns their money in these bloggers eyes?
I could go into detail about my feelings about this but I won't. I just fail to see why the ones on strike wave just as hard as they can when we drive past them on Mt. Hermon Road. Why do they think we care? What is the purpose of waving? If they are on strike, they need to take their little signs and walk back and forth in front of the entrance. Those of us driving by don't care. Seeing this twice a day is getting old. I refuse to look at them.
Is there anyone out there who actually does a good job and earns their money in these bloggers eyes?
August 15, 2011 12:54 PM
Maybe the ones who don't piss and moan and think they are heros while others would love to even have a job?
You guys are going to do whatever you want and think is right. That's fine. It's your right and choice.
Just as it is our choice not to want to care about you having to chip in to your benefits, when so many don't have a job, much less benefits.
We don't see unions as a white knight defending the middle class. We see it as a company destroyer. A greedy, self serving and yes, lazy entity.
You will not change that. Espousing rude comments and attacking others, even tho the same is directed at you admittedly, only serves to prove the before mentioned points.
It is what it is, so get used to it.
Throw the union bums into a ditch and let them all rot.
Don't forget your Police and Firemans Union too! We all know how lazy cops are, Fireman, not so much.
Fireman, not so much
lol. They don't do anything until there is a fire except maybe wash their trucks. Which is fine with me as long as they come when called.
Fact: Verizon has *no* competition in several very important segments of the market. Sure, you can get a TV/Internet/phone package from a cable company, but it will be a cold day in hell when Wall Street (or any serious business, government, hospital etc.) starts relying on anything but point-to-point circuits of various kinds for data transfer. No one can provide that but your LEC - which, in this case, is Verizon.
Fact: You can't outsource a job of someone who's hammering down a pole in Massachusetts. Can't do it from China, sorry, buddy. You can hire a contractor but due to a variety of factors it would likely cost as much.
Fact: In " The South" where there's no Union representation, a field tech earns and average $25-30/h depending on the LEC, area served and several other factors. Why do you think that is?
Fact: There is *no* wireless without wireline feeding the tower, be it fiber, copper or a combination of both.
Fact: There is *no* Internet of *any* kind without the fiber backbone owned for the most part in this country by...you've guessed it: Verizon. That's why they bought MCI in the first place...
Fact: A vast majority of Verizon's unionized employees have invested *significant* amounts into Verizon stock and have a direct interest in company's well-being...
One would think with all the businesses that have closed their doors in Salisbury as the result of strikes that Unions would get a clue and realize this is NOT the way for its members to keep their jobs. Long short of it, regardless of the "company's profits" the employees should count themselves LUCKY to have jobs in a climate where jobs are SCARCE.
If they strike again and lose their jobs, they get no sympathy from me. Let them hoof it and see whatelse they can find out there in the world -- and good lucky.
Verizon should just go the way of Dresser and Crown -- just go to a right to work state where people are glad they have a job.
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