Verizon workers take protest to Taunton Green

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http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20150917/NEWS/150916036/0/breaking_ajax



Members of IBEW 2322 protested against Verizon on Thursday on the Taunton Green. The workers said they have been without a contract since Aug. 1, as the union and Verizon fail to come to terms on medical coverage.

Verizon workers take protest to Taunton Green


By Marc Larocque
Taunton Gazette Staff Reporter
Posted Sep. 17, 2015 at 6:34 PM
Updated at 9:56 PM

TAUNTON – Wearing red T-shirts and holding signs, around 100 union workers for Verizon took to the Taunton Green on Thursday night to protest the company for not giving them “a fair contract.”

Eric Hetrick, local business manager for IBEW 2322 in Middleboro, said that 38,000 workers in his union from the Potomac region up through New England have been working without a contact since Aug. 1 because Verizon’s new contract offer would hurt their health benefits, among other issues.

"They are trying to drastically reduce the health coverage, and drastically increase the price of coverage,” said Hetrick, who marched around the Green, as many motorists cheered or honked for the workers. “What needs to happen is the company needs to bargain in good faith at the table. … We are not looking for anything more than what we have right now. We are not looking to make major gains. We just want to keep what we have, so we can keep our middle class way of life.”

In addition to IBEW 2322, which consists of many telephone workers, members of the CWA local 1400 union attended the Taunton Green rally as well. There is a Verizon call center located at the Myles Standish Industrial Park in Taunton, where a lot of the protesters work, Hetrick said.

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Since 1990 NYNEX/Bell Atlantic/Bell Atlantic/Verizon has never treated unions well.