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CWA, IBEW members ‘overwhelmingly’ support new contract following strike.
Unions representing thousands of Verizon employees late last week ratified a new contract that was agreed during a seven-week strike.
The four-year deal, struck in late May, provides pay rises, and various bonuses and benefits to fixed-line engineers and customer service staff in the northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. It also gives Verizon Wireless retail staff in Brooklyn, New York and Everett, Massachusetts, their first ever contract, which provides employee protections and bonus schemes.
Under the agreement, Verizon has also agreed not to close several call centres and scrapped plans to cut pensions and accident and disability benefits. The U.S. telco will also create 1,300 union call centre jobs, and will increase by 25% the volume of pole maintenance work in New York State carried out by union workers.
"When working people come together as a union, we can make a difference in improving wages and providing stability for families," said Dennis Trainor, vice president of CWA District 1, which represents members in New York, New Jersey, New England, and eastern Canada.
Between 36,000 and 40,000 Verizon employees went on strike in mid-April.
Those involved were engineers based in the northeast of the country who install and maintain Verizon’s FiOS fixed broadband service, and related customer service staff. They are members of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) unions.
Their grievances included being assigned to jobs that kept them away from home for up to two months, call centre closures, and the outsourcing of jobs to non-union contractors and overseas companies.
"It was a tough strike, but this contract, which secures good jobs in our communities and preserve workers’ standard of living shows what can happen when we stand together," said Ed Mooney, vice president of CWA District 2-13, which serves Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Verizon CFO Fran Shammo recently revealed that the strike will shave $0.05-$0.07 off the company’s second-quarter earnings per share. The operator posted EPS of $1.04 in the second quarter of last year and $1.06 in the most recent quarter.
Shammo explained that Verizon had to pay overtime to managers and bring in external contractors to cover for the striking staff.
These extra staff worked on maintenance and repair jobs, rather than new line installations, where the cost of sending a technician to carry out the work is covered by the addition of the new customer.
As a result of the strike, "net adds of wireline will be negative for the quarter," he said.
Verizon is due to publish its second quarter results on 26 July.
