Striking Verizon workers rally in White Plains

Striking Communication Workers of America members march outside the Verizon corporate office in White Plains on the first day of their East Coast work stoppage in April.

Hundreds of Communications Workers of America members and their supporters rallied this morning outside the corporate office of Verizon Communications in downtown White Plains at the start of a union strike affecting tens of thousands of workers in the telecommunications company”™s East Coast wireline business from Massachusetts to Virginia.

Members of Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers walked off the job at 6 a.m. Wednesday after failing to reach a contract agreement with Verizon in 10 months of bargaining. Brandishing pickets signs and chanting, “Stand up! Fight Back!” members of CWA Local 1103 wore red clothing in a show of solidarity in the shadow of the Verizon building at 111 Main St. The Verizon workers”™ previous contract expired last Aug. 1, two months after negotiations began on a new contract, according to union officials.

Union leaders have said the strike affects about 1,500 members of CWA Local 1103 ”” which represents about 2,000 workers and retirees in Westchester and Putnam counties and southern Connecticut from its Port Chester headquarters ”” and nearly 40,000 Verizon employees on the East Coast. Verizon officials today put the number of striking workers at 36,000.

Kevin Sheil, president of Local 1103, at the morning rally called Verizon”™s claim that it wanted to resolve the contract dispute with federal mediation “a lie.” The company on Tuesday failed to approach union negotiators to resume bargaining as the strike deadline loomed, Sheil said.

Verizon said in a press release that the company on Monday was asked by the federal Mediation Conciliation Service if it would participate in mediation if the unions extended their strike deadline. The company indicated it was willing to mediate, as was done in 2012 when it reached a contract with the two striking unions, according to Verizon. Verizon officials said union leaders this time refused to participate in federal mediation and went ahead with the strike.

Union officials in strike statements accused Verizon of “corporate greed,” noting the company made $39 billion in profits in the last three years and $1.8 billion a month in profits in the first quarter of this year. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam is paid 200 times more than the average Verizon employee and the company”™s top five executives made $233 million over the last five years, according to CWA officials.

Union officials said they offered significant concessions to reduce Verizon”™s health care costs, which they said was the company”™s “primary concern” at the bargaining table. They said Verizon seeks cutbacks that include offshoring and contracting out more customer service to Mexico, the Philippines and low-wage non-union contractors; job security cuts; call-center closings and consolidations; requiring wireline technicians to work away from home for as long as two months without seeing their families; freezing pensions at 30 years of service and forcing retirees to pay “extremely high” health care costs; cutting benefits for workers injured on the job; and refusing to negotiate a wages and benefits package for Verizon Wireless retail workers who joined Communication Workers of America in 2014.

Union officials claimed Verizon has barely 40 percent fewer workers now than a decade ago and has not hired enough personnel to properly roll out FIOS, its high-speed broadband service.

“If a hugely profitable corporation like Verizon can destroy the good family-supporting jobs of highly skilled workers, then no worker in America will be safe from this corporate race to the bottom,” said Dennis Trainor, vice president of CommunicationÂ Workers of America District 1.

Marc Reed, Verizon”™s chief administrative officer, in a statement today called the strike “a move that hurts all of our employees.” He said union leaders “have their own agenda rooted in the past and are ignoring today”™s digital realities.”

Verizon officials said trained non-union employees will cover for striking workers. Over the past year, thousands of non-union workers and Verizon business partners have been extensively trained in network and customer service functions, they said.