Readying for Tough Bargaining, Members Stoke the Fires at Verizon

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.labornotes.org/2010/08/readying-tough-bargaining-members-stoke-fires-verizon

Pam Galpern | August 6, 2010

Hundreds of workers rallied outside Verizon headquarters in Boston August 5, signaling the beginning of the one year countdown to expiration of the Verizon East contract, covering about 50,000 workers from Massachusetts to Virginia.

“A year before our contracts expire, we’re sending a message to Verizon’s top management that we’ll fight for the preservation of good jobs, quality health care and secure pension benefits in negotiations next year,” said Myles Calvey, business manager of IBEW Local 2222 and chair of the New England telephone workers' bargaining committee.


Hundreds of workers rallied in Boston, signaling the beginning of the one year countdown to expiration of the Verizon East contract, covering about 50,000 workers from Massachusetts to Virginia. Photo: Rand Wilson.

The rally was only one piece of recent rank and file activity, which has been on the upswing lately among members and local leaders at Verizon.

They also pushed the passage of two resolutions at CWA’s national convention in late July, one of which called on the union to organize Verizon Wireless and another that discouraged members from taking temporary management positions.
SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL

The need to organize Verizon Wireless and other non-union subsidiaries of Verizon has long been a concern of the union. A neutrality agreement achieved through a 2000 strike at Verizon was promptly ignored by the company, which continued to harass, intimidate, and fire union activists who dared to stand up for their rights on the job.

In the past 10 years the unionization level at Verizon and its subsidiaries has plummeted from 70 percent unionization to less than 30 percent. The landline sector of the business, which remains heavily unionized, is declining fast, while the most profitable side of the business, the wireless division, is almost entirely non-union.

FULL story at link.