Washington, DC – Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers returned to work on June 1, just days after a tentative agreement between the company and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) unions brought their 44-day strike to an end.

The strike was one of the largest and longest in recent U.S. history, impacting 11 states in the northeast and south. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 47,000 workers walked off the job in 12 major work stoppages for all of 2015. And this was actually higher than 2014, when just 34,000 workers walked off the job in major strikes tracked by the BLS across the U.S.

The rank-and-file CWA and IBEW members showed courageous determination in striking for more than six weeks to fight back against Verizon management’s concessionary demands. The workers’ last contract expired in August and their healthcare coverage was cut at the end of April.

The militancy displayed by Verizon workers beat back the worst of the bosses’ demands. Union leaders have declared the tentative contract a victory. Ultimately, workers belonging to both unions must vote up or down in the coming weeks on approving the contract deal before it can legally go into effect.

New contract deal brings many wins for workers, makes some concessions to Verizon

Competing reports in the capitalist press, such as the Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine, and statements issued by the unions representing Verizon workers, paint a somewhat mixed picture of the tentative contract that is up for a vote by workers. One thing that is clear is that the new contract includes a lot of victories for workers and some concessions to Verizon management.

Attempts by management to force pension cuts and reductions in accident and disability benefits and eliminate layoff protections for certain classes of employees were successfully defeated by striking Verizon workers. The tentative deal between the union and Verizon management includes raises of almost 11% over four years, up from the 6.5% Verizon had originally offered, and the addition of 1300 new union jobs at call centers. Verizon retreated on some of its proposals to outsource work. Instead of the proposed pension cuts, Verizon workers will now receive a slight increase in pension benefits.

The agreement also provides an opening for the unions to organize low-wage wireless retail workers at the company’s 1700 retail sites by securing a contract for approximately 70 unionized workers at several Verizon stores in New York City and Massachusetts. The workers at these stores have been working without their first contract since joining CWA in 2014. Approximately 100 wireless technicians also won a contract. These provisions represent real wins for Verizon workers and illustrate the power that the working class has in withholding its labor.

However, the tentative contract represents a partial victory since concessions were made to some of the demands made by company bosses. Verizon secured new limits on retiree health benefits. The unions also agreed to take on hundreds of millions of dollars more in healthcare costs during the life of the contract and workers will now pay higher premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. Additionally, the company won more flexibility to route customer calls to centers around the U.S. and offer workers buyout options once a year to leave, without prior approval of the union. This could prove an important tool for the company to reduce the workforce over the life of the upcoming contract.

The increased premiums and out-of-pocket expenses come just a few years after the unions made historic concessions in the 2011-12 contract fight, including forcing workers to pay a share of health insurance premiums for the first time. The fact that Verizon came back harder and tried to take more after the 2011-12 concessions is an important lesson. The bosses’ appetite for concessions is insatiable. The more you undermine standards, security, and pay for workers by feeding concessions to management, the more concessions management will demand in the future.

These concessions to Verizon bosses come even though the company is incredibly profitable. Verizon’s own financial reporting shows that the company made $17.9 billion in net annual profit in 2015, up from $9.6 billion in 2014. First quarter 2016 Verizon net profits came in at more than $4.3 billion. Verizon has used this extraordinary profit to pay its CEO 200 times more than the average Verizon worker and provide the company’s top five executives with $233 million in compensation over the last five years, according to CWA.

Despite the concessions made to management, the Verizon workers’ partial victory, including the defeat of many of the most egregious takebacks proposed by Verizon management, would not have been possible without the strength and militancy displayed by Verizon workers by striking for an extended period of time.

Capitalist state intervention shows that the bosses fear worker militancy

In mid-May, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez brought the company and unions back to the bargaining table so that he could use the authority of his office to intervene in the contract discussions. Perez recently issued a statement on the tentative agreement between Verizon and the unions, saying in part, “Today, I am pleased to announce that the parties have reached an agreement in principle on a four-year contract, resolving the open issues in the ongoing labor dispute between Verizon’s workers, unions, and management…This tentative resolution is a testament to the power of collective bargaining.”

Perez, who is sometimes mentioned as a potential vice presidential nominee for the Democratic Party ticket this fall, is careful to give lip service to the power of collective bargaining. However, strengthening collective bargaining is not the reason that the capitalist state intervened in the negotiations between Verizon and the unions. The motivating factor for the state’s intervention rests with the last line of the Labor Secretary’s statement, which simply states, “I expect that workers will be back on the job next week.”

The fact is that the Verizon strike saw a massive work stoppage pushed by tens of thousands of rank-and-file union members at a multi-billion-dollar company that services more than 112 million wireless connections and 7 million internet subscribers. Scab replacement workers hired by Verizon were doing a poor job of delivering service, and the Labor Secretary’s intervention was primarily intended to stop the strike from disrupting parts of the U.S. capitalist economy.

By intervening, both Verizon and the state recognized the power of rank-and-file workers engaged in militant action and acknowledged that strike activity can disrupt the establishment economic order, especially if it spreads across employers or industries. There are indications that the idea of militant strike activity, inspired in part by the visible Verizon workers’ strike, is gaining traction among the broader working class.

For example, thousands of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 members working at Kroger grocery stores in the Roanoke Valley area of Virginia voted to authorize a strike on May 18. That strike ultimately did not occur after the company invited the union back to the negotiating table and made some movement to further increase wages following the strike authorization vote.

It is important to note that many rank-and-file trade unionists are often ahead of their union leadership on taking militant strike action. The decision on whether and how long to strike is often shaped by a section of union leaders who are quick to collaborate with the boss and cut a deal before workers have exerted their full leverage in stopping production. This can often shorten the length of strikes in a way that is detrimental to worker demands or stop strikes in their tracks before they even get off the ground.

Still, the Kroger strike vote in Virginia shows that just the threat of a strike can sometimes be enough to bring the boss back to the table and extract some level of concessions, however minor. And the Verizon strike, despite some of the concessions contained in the tentative contract, demonstrates that prolonged and militant strike action is the path forward for the working class in this country to exercise its full power, extract real concessions from the company and eventually put the boss back on the defensive. Workers in this country need more strikes, not fewer.

#WashingtonDC #strike #CommunicationsWorkersOfAmericaCWA #Verizon #InternationalBrotherhoodOfElectricalWorkers #Strikes

Washington DC – Verizon workers with Communication Workers of America (CWA) Local 2336 were joined by IBEW union members to rally in downtown Washington, DC today, April 21. Around 100 workers picketed outside a Verizon store near the Metro Center train stop.

Chants of, “Up, up with the union, yeah, yeah! Down, down with the bosses, boom, boom!” as well as “What do we want? Contract! When do we want it? Now!” where heard through the busy business district.

“If you're a young person and you came into this company now, you would not have a pension and that's not right!” said Ortessa Allen, a 45-year member of CWA Local 2336 and Verizon technician worker. “If they do this to us then what are they gonna do to others?”

#WashingtonDC #strike #CommunicationWorkersOfAmerica #Verizon #Strikes

14 Apr 2016

The World Federation of Trade Unions, founded in 1945 and representing 92 million workers in 120 countries, sends a message of working class solidarity to the 40,000 Verizon workers in the United States who went on strike at 6 am on April 13, 2016.

We stand with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in their battle to end Verizon’s outrageous actions against the workers.

The WFTU condemns Verizon’s proposal to gut job security, contract out more work, offshore jobs to other countries, and to require technicians to work away from home for as long as two months without seeing their families.

The WFTU calls on Verizon to end its refusal to negotiate any wage or benefit improvements for Verizon Wireless retail workers who organized into the union in 2014.

The WFTU demands that Verizon end its efforts to freeze pensions at 30 years of service and to force extremely high health care costs on retirees.

Verizon has 40% fewer workers than a decade ago in spite of its making $39 million in profits over the last three years and 5.4 billion in profit in the first 3 months of 2016.

This cut in vital staff not only causes harm to workers but also to the communities that are dependent on the communications services that these workers provide.

The WFTU calls on Verizon to hire the workers necessary to fulfill its obligations to provide high-speed broadband services in cities like Philadelphia and New York.

We call on unions across the globe to act in solidarity with these striking workers who have the courage to stand against Verizon, one of the most wealthy and powerful corporations.

The WFTU calls on Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, who was paid $18 million in salary last year, to reverse its violations of human dignity and to meet the just demands of the striking workers.

THE SECRETARIAT OF WFTU

#UnitedStates #strike #WorldFederationOfTradeUnions #Verizon #Strikes #WFTU

New York, NY – Striking Verizon workers were out on picket line in force, April 13 in New York City. They are among the 40,000 workers who walked of the job this morning at 6:00 a.m. It is the largest U.S. strike in recent years.

The company wants to gut job security protections, contract out more work, offshore jobs to Mexico, the Philippines and other locations and require technicians to work away from home for as long as two months without seeing their families. Verizon is also refusing to negotiate any improvements in wages, benefits or working conditions for Verizon Wireless retail workers, who formed a union in 2014.

#NewYorkNY #strike #Verizon #Strikes

“We’re standing up for working families and standing up to Verizon’s corporate greed,” said CWA District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor. “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.”

Verizon made $39 billion in profits over the last three years and $1.8 billion a month in profits over the first three months of 2016. The company wants to gut job security protections, contract out more work, offshore jobs to Mexico, the Philippines and other locations and require technicians to work away from home for as long as two months without seeing their families. Verizon is also refusing to negotiate any improvements in wages, benefits or working conditions for Verizon Wireless retail workers, who formed a union in 2014.

“More and more, Americans are outraged by what some of the nation’s wealthiest corporations have done to working people over the last 30 years, and Verizon is becoming the poster child for everything that people in this country are angry about,” said Edward Mooney, vice president of CWA District 2-13.

The Verizon negotiations began in June 2015, and the workers’ contract expired on August 1. At the same time, Verizon’s CEO is making 200 times more than the average Verizon employee, and the company’s top five executives made $233 million over the last five years.

“For months and months, we’ve made every effort to reach a fair agreement at the bargaining table,” said Myles Calvey, IBEW Local 2222 business manager and chairman, T-6 Verizon New England. “We have to take a stand now for our families and every American worker.”

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #strike #Verizon #Strikes #laborRights

An Aug. 7 statement from the CWA declared, “CWA and IBEW members are prepared to return to work when management demonstrates the willingness to begin bargaining seriously for a fair agreement. If not, CWA and IBEW members and allies will continue the fight.”

Observers expect that this will be a protracted battle.

#NewYorkNY #strike #concessions #Verizon