CWA 1180 - Solidarity Works

Verizon won't bargain in good faith

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Picket
The strikers need support more than ever as the holidays approach. Stop by the Local 1105 picket line at 61 Broadway any morning from 8 a.m. to noon to offer encouragement—or hot coffee!

Email
Send an email to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg—tell him that if he can afford a multimillion-dollar office renovation (just completed at their 140 West Street office), he can certainly afford to give a fair deal to the workers at Verizon Information Services.

Sing
Join a picket, complete with caroling, Thursday, December 22, 6 to 7 p.m., at 30 East 65th Street.

December 2005

Union members from nine CWA locals, including Local 1180, turned out in the cold on December 8 to offer support to striking Verizon Information Services workers. The 300 workers, based in New York City, Long Island, and Upstate, are mostly ad sales representatives and clerical workers for Verizon Yellow Pages. They have been out on strike since October 31, forced to the picket lines because Verizon refused to bargain in good faith. Negotiations began last April over such issues as health care benefits, sales commission formulas, and the notorious Article 9, a clause in the workers’ first contract that allowed Verizon to unilaterally change their pay after year one of a three-year contract.

“They would only engage in surface bargaining,” says CWA Local 1105’s Paul Sapienza, a member of the negotiating team. “Any changes they made were minor. They made some important verbal promises, and even insisted we write them up. But then they gave us a final package that didn’t include any of these promises. It was a bait and switch.” Worst of all, Verizon said they would not accept a final contract with any changes to Article 9.

After a 30-day bargaining window ended September 8 and two more extensions led nowhere, the union filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board and declared a strike at midnight on October 31. (The NLRB charge is still pending.)

Support from other unions, and from businesses and elected officials, has been tremendous. Members of IBEW in Albany brought platters of food to the Albany picket line, while Krispy Kreme dropped off doughnuts for picketers in Buffalo. UPS, DHL, FedEx, and the Postal Service have all refused to make deliveries. The mayor of Albany walked in to the Verizon Information Services office there and told the general manager to call headquarters and demand a fair contract. CWA Local 1301 sent a check for $30,000 to support the strikers and their families. And at the December 8 rally in New York City, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, and several members of the State Senate and City Council came to show their support.

The strikers have been creative in their tactics, picketing at the homes of scab workers and trailing managers as they try to take over the workers’ sales routes, setting up impromptu pickets wherever management tries to go inside and make an ad sale.

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