On April 11th, the unions of working people at Verizon announced that they would strike if their bosses failed to negotiate a mutually beneficial contract. For the past two and a half weeks more than 39,000 Verizon employees, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), have taken to the streets to demand a fair contract for themselves to work under.
During the last contract negotiation in 2011, Verizon came with a list of demands that would have gone back on decades of progress for the workers. After a two-week strike and 16 months of mobilization by working people and allied groups, Verizon and the unions came to an agreement and fought against the worst of the company's demands. When the corporate giant came to the bargaining table again this year with a similar opening proposal, it became clear that the company has a plan to cut jobs that provide for families, decrease it services offered to the community, and send customer service calls overseas.
The Verizon employees contracts expired in August 2015 and a majority of CWA and IBEW workers voted to participate in a labor strike if a fair contract was not reached. As teams of working people stand together, it's important for us to back them. If Verizon gets its way, we're allowing big business to change the rules in their favor again, instead of making sure that the members of our community have jobs that value them.
As you hear about the strike in the news, here are a few reasons to support the local unions of Verizon:
Verizon makes billions each year, yet they still want to take away promised benefits.
Verizon took in $9.6 billion in profit in 2014, $39 billion in the last three years, and $1.8 billion per month for the first three months of 2016. However, it is clear that the corporate bosses at Verizon are still unsatisfied with their profits. Verizon has asked its workforce to agree upon massive healthcare cuts for its retirees, people who were already promised these benefits. They want to increase the cost of employee healthcare (keep in mind the massive amount of profit being made monthly). They also want to force technicians to work away from home for up to two months with no allotted time to see their families. All of these would be drastic changes to the quality of life for the workers and their families.
Verizon invests it's resources elsewhere.
Instead of investing resources in reaching an agreement, Verizon invested time and money in training about 15,000 people to take over in case of a labor strike. Verizon also designed an app for its non-union employees that allows geotagged photos of union members to be taken throughout negotiations.
Basically, it's an app designed to tell corporate members exactly where the union members are meeting, in hopes of rattling the workers so they don't meet.
Verizon wants to get rid of American jobs.
The people who work at Verizon have worked hard to make their workplace better for themselves and the future workers. But just like in 2011, Verizon wants the workers to agree with replacing American customer service workers with cheap, overseas, labor. There's nothing worse than trying to fix your TV or computer and having the person on the other line not understand you.
Verizon won't expand FiOS.
The demand for fast internet is higher than ever. Verizon recently got tax breaks in exchange for expanding FiOS throughout the northeast however, the company announced that they are no longer expanding that service. This leaves many customers without access to the quick internet access they were promised. Although the company has in no way stated this, one can guess the reason FiOS will not be expanded is because the company simply does not want to invest in the workers needed to do this.
Verizon steals from tax payers.
Verizon doesn't just cut costs by eliminating benefits and American jobs, they also take money from taxpayers. From 2008-2013, Verizon received a tax refund of $732 million from the IRS, which resulted in a corporate income tax rate of -2%. As a poor college kid, even I don't have a negative income tax rate, there is something seriously wrong with that. Furthermore, in 2012, the company stored $1.8 billion in foreign bank accounts.
It's clear that this company is a picture of corporate greed. They stand to make money at all costs with no regard for families, the communities they serve, or our country.
When you stand against Verizon, you're standing for more than telephone workers. You're standing for men and women that are putting children through college, putting their daughter in dance lessons, and putting their son in little league. Click here to stand with Verizon.
