News
Unions stand firm against outsourcing jobs, long-distance assignments.
The strike by tens of thousands of Verizon’s fixed-line staff is set to continue this week after the two sides failed to reach a deal on Friday.
The Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) met with the U.S. telco late last week to negotiate a new contract.
According to the CWA, the talks lasted just 30 minutes.
"Workers have already put hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare cost savings on the table. We simply cannot compromise on contract changes that would ship more work overseas and have our families separated for months at a time," said Ed Mooney, vice president of district 2-13 of the CWA, in a statement on Friday.
District 2-13 represents employees in Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
Somewhere between 36,000 and 40,000 Verizon staff based in the northeast of the country went on strike last Wednesday following months of fruitless contract negotiation.
Those involved are predominantly engineers who install and maintain Verizon’s FiOS fixed broadband service, and related customer service staff. Their employment contract expired on 1 August 2015.
The CWA and IBEW’s members are opposed to call centre closures and customer services jobs being transferred overseas. They are also against the increasing number of jobs being outsourced by Verizon to low-wage, non-union contractors, and are angry with Verizon for assigning jobs to wireline employees that sees them having to live away from home for up to two months at a time.
To cope with the strike, Verizon has brought in thousands of non-union workers. It has also maintained a willingness to negotiate with the unions.
