Verizon and its workers were negotiating a new contract Saturday evening before a midnight strike deadline.
The current contract for members of the Communication Workers of America expires at 12 a.m. Sunday, and workers said they intended to picket as early as Sunday morning if no deal was met.
The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represent over 65,000 Verizon workers from Maine to Virginia.
The major areas of dispute involve increases in workers’ responsibility for healthcare coverage, retiree health care, subcontracting and outsourcing of jobs, and the right to organize at Verizon Business, where a majority of technicians in the Northeast have signed union cards indicating they want to join CWA and IBEW.
Last week, 91 percent of CWA’s 50,000 members voted to authorize a strike if negotiations fail to produce an agreement by midnight on August 2.
IBEW members also have voted to authorize a strike.
The union members maintain the Verizon telephone network and build and install Verizon’s new fiber optic FiOS TV and Internet network.
Workers said that if CWA and IBEW strike at Verizon, it would be one of the largest strikes in the United States in over a decade.
Verizon executives emphasized that the expansion of its fiber-optic FiOS service would continue.
(Source: NY1 / WNBC)
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One Response
So let me ask the group a question:
If anyone from Verizon goes on strike will anyone notice OR care??
Verizon’s customer lack of service is becoming worse and worse as time goes on.