Verizon workers strike over lost jobs and refusal to expand fiber

Non-union employees will take over customer service and network repairs.

Jon Brodkin – Apr 13, 2016 10:15 am | 108

Verizon workers rallying in July 2015, just before their contract expired. Credit: Communications Workers of America

After 10 months of failed negotiations, 36,000 Verizon workers went on strike this morning. As a result, Verizon will use nonunion workers to perform repairs, network maintenance, and customer service on its fiber and copper wireline networks.

The strike was called by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which complain that Verizon is seeking to move jobs offshore, outsource work to low-wage contractors, close call centers, and force technicians to go on months-long assignments away from home.

“Verizon executives want wireline technicians to work away from home for as long as two months at a time, anywhere from Massachusetts to Virginia, without seeing their families,” the CWA said yesterday. “Working parents like Isaac Collazo, a cable splicer from New York, fear they will be forced to choose between caring for their kids and keeping their jobs.”

The unions also say that Verizon has cut staff instead of living up to promises to install more FiOS fiber lines. Despite plans to expand FiOS in Boston, Verizon has largely stopped expansion of the fiber network.

“For years, Verizon has been cutting vital staff—it has nearly 40 percent fewer workers now than a decade ago—and has failed to hire the personnel necessary to properly roll out the [FiOS] service,” the unions said. “In New York City and Philadelphia, Verizon has failed to meet the build-out obligations under their citywide cable franchise agreements. And Verizon has failed to build out FiOS in Baltimore, western Massachusetts, virtually all upstate New York cities, and many towns in Pennsylvania.” (Verizon has denied allegations that it hasn’t lived up to FiOS construction agreements.)

Verizon criticized the unions today, saying that the company has “proposed wage increases, continued retirement benefits (including a generous 401(k) match) and excellent healthcare benefits.” Verizon wanted a federal mediator to help settle the dispute, but the unions refused.

Over the past year, Verizon says it has trained “thousands of non-union Verizon employees and business partners” to take over “various network and customer service functions, including FiOS and copper repair and network maintenance and general customer service functions.”

More than 99 percent of the striking employees are in the wireline side, while a small portion work for Verizon Wireless, The New York Times wrote. As a result, employees will be picketing in front of both Verizon facilities and Verizon Wireless stores.

Verizon has contracted work out to more than 5,000 employees outside the US, resulting in customer service calls being handled by workers in the Philippines, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and other overseas countries, the unions said. Verizon wants to increase the offshoring and “dramatically expand its outsourcing of work to low-wage non-union contractors” for copper and fiber line installation and maintenance, the unions said.

Because of a plan to close call centers, “hundreds of Verizon workers are at risk of losing their jobs or being forced to commute as much as three hours more each day,” the unions said.

Verizon accused the unions of pursuing an “agenda rooted in the past” while “ignoring today’s digital realities.” Many phone, Internet, and TV problems can be solved by customers themselves through the use of online support tools, Verizon said.