An estimated 40,000 Verizon workers in Delaware and other states went out on strike Wednesday morning, with the company claiming it has prepared for a year for a walkout.
“After more than a year of intense preparations, Verizon’s strike readiness team has been fully activated and is ready for a threatened union leadership driven strike or other job action, potentially as soon as tomorrow morning,” the company stated. The strike is centered on the East Coast, home of Verizon’s landline operations.
“Let’s make it clear – we are ready for a strike,” said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon’s wireline network operations. “With any sort of job action or disruption to our business, our primary goal is to ensure our customers can count on the critical communications services that they pay for, and we provide. I want them to know that will happen.”
Unions representing Verizon workers have claimed the company has not bargained in good faith, pointing to the billions of dollars in earnings as a sign of greed and demands for outsourcing services overseas. The war of words included Verizon using the term “union leadership driven.” The union also put technology to work by setting up a website that announced the strike and listed locations where picketing is taking place.
Verizon stated that it was was approached by the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service (FMCS). FMCS asked if the Company would be willing to mediate if the unions extend the strike deadline. The company said it would agree to that request.
Union leaders seemed to be cool to any talk of mediation.
“Marc Reed and other Verizon executives are trying to rig the system against working families. The question of federal mediation is a distraction to the real problem: Verizon’s corporate greed,” a Communications Workers of American release stated. “Historically, federal mediators only get involved in collective bargaining situations with the agreement of both parties. CWA did not authorize anyone at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to approach Verizon about extending the strike date. Either the FMCS acted without authorization or Verizon executive vice president Marc Reed is lying. All day today, CWA and IBEW bargaining teams have been available to meet, ready, able and willing to bargain. Where’s Verizon?”
“We know a strike driven by union leaders will pose challenges for both of our union-represented employees and those asked to temporarily fill-in,” said Tami Erwin, Verizon’s group president of Verizon’s consumer and mass business unit. “We have, however, a commitment to enable our customers to make connections wherever and whenever they want. At the same time, we’re also committed to ensuring any new contract with our unions will help keep our wireline business moving forward on a path toward success.”
In addition to the company’s landline workforce, Verizon now has won the right to organize at company-owned retail stores.
The timing of the strike, which could have been called months ago, seemed to be tailor-made for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has made corporate greed the theme of his campaign as he shoots for a primary upset in New York, the site of Verizon’s headquarters and in another company stronghold, Pennsylvania.
It will also leave his opponent Hillary Clinton in an uncomfortable spot. Sanders has charged Clinton with cozy ties with big business.
Telecom companies have slashed their workforces over the years as technology changed, and contractors handled a growing number of tasks, thanks to union concessions.
Verizon has focused on its wireless business while not expanding its landline businesses and selling its legacy telephone operations outside the East Coast. Union critics have claimed the company has reneged on promises of expanding FiOS and the company walked away from installing FiOS in Wilmington, followed what it saw as excessive demands from the city.
Verizon has faced competition in its landline phone, Internet and cable TV from largely nonunion Comcast after launching FiOS.
The competition between the two giants has been credited with giving Delaware among the fastest Internet speeds in the nation, thanks to Verizon’s fiber-optic-based FiOS system and Comcast rolling out the latest technology that leverages the capabilities of copper in the “last mile” of service. Comcast has also installed more fiber closer to homes.
Comcast also operates a broadband cable and Internet system for business with sophisticated capabilities that targets one of Verizon’s key businesses. Comcast business also comes with a separate customer service system that earns higher marks than its long-criticized residential customer care.
