Working In These Times
Verizon Showdown Calls for New Strike Tactics
Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen speaks at a rally outside Verizon headquarters in New York City on July 30, 2011. (Photo via Communications Workers of America )
The culture of “no contract, no work” is almost extinct in the United States, where strike activity has reached an all-time low.
Among telephone workers in the northeast, at Verizon and AT&T, this union tradition remains strong, based on successful walkouts by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1998, 2000 and 2004.
In the longest of those struggles, 60,000 CWA and IBEW members struck for four months against healthcare cost shifting at NYNEX, the New York and New England company now known as Verizon (VZ). Only in 2003 did a regional bargaining unit—then 75,000 strong at VZ—stay on the job after contract expiration to avoid being ensnared in a carefully prepared management plan to replace thousands of strikers with contractors,.
On Saturday night, August 6, CWA and IBEW agreements expire in the same unit, now shrunk to 45,000 by buyouts, attrition, contracting out, job elimination and technological change, and the sale of Verizon operations in four states. In this round of bargaining, workers face unacceptable concessions and a tough decision about how to resist them most effectively.
In the words of CWA District 1 legislative/political director Robert Master, “Verizon has put on the table the most aggressive set of contract demands we’ve ever seen,” aimed at turning tens of thousands of secure jobs with good benefits “into lower-wage, much less secure jobs.”
Like General Electric, which just won givebacks from CWA and other unions, Verizon “isn’t under any financial stress,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The company reported $10.2 billion in profits in 2010 and its net income for the first half of this year was $6.9 billion. Over the past four years, Verizon earned nearly $20 billion for its shareholders (a record of profitably used to justify the $258 million spent on salaries, bonuses and stock options for just five of its top executives, including new CEO Lowell McAdam, during the same period).
And like GE, Verizon has pursued a systematic and long-term strategy of de-unionization. It has thwarted organizing at its fast-growing and hugely-profitable cellular subsidiary, Verizon Wireless, while steadily eliminating unionized jobs on the traditional landline side of its business.
The company now has 135,000 nonunion employees—and its unionized workforce is down to 30 percent of the total. In the current negotiations management seems determined to close the gap between the wage and benefit standards created through 70 years of collective bargaining and those implemented unilaterally at VZW and other nonunion divisions.
Verizon’s proposed takeaways focus on what it calls “legacy” benefits. As a result of winning the NYNEX strike 22 years ago, CWA and IBEW members make no premium payments for individual or family coverage. According to VZ, “current average annual medical coverage” costs the firm nearly $14,000 a year—“twice the average for comparable companies in the eastern U.S. whose employees make contributions toward their healthcare.”
As management pointed out in a recent message to its “associates,” even “the CWA recently confirmed that 99 percent of companies now charge for family healthcare coverage.” Under Verizon’s proposal, this disparity would be corrected by forcing workers with dependents to pay $1,300 to $3,000 a year for family coverage.
Existing group pension coverage would be frozen and eliminated entirely for new hires, who would just be covered by 401(k) plans instead. Sick days would be limited to five per year, job security language gutted, raises tied to performance reviews, and more customer service reps put on commission pay. To add insult to injury, Verizon even wants to take away Veterans’ Day and Martin Luther King Day as paid holidays.
Workers ready to strike—and Verizon ready to weather storm
Not surprisingly, more than 90 percent of the workers polled by CWA and IBEW in recent weeks have voted to authorize a strike. Workplace mobilization activity—a long tradition among CWA and IBEW members in the region—has accelerated in recent weeks, after a later than usual official start. Ten thousand workers rallied at Verizon headquarters in New York City last Saturday and big crowds are expected in Philadelphia and Boston this Thursday evening (August 4) after work.
Thousands of rank-and-filers have signed up to become part of national union or locally initiated e-networks to share information about smaller-scale protests and expressions of workplace solidarity throughout the region. (See, for example, the very lively Facebook group set up by union stewards in New England under the name “We Are One! Ready to Strike at Verizon 2011 (IBEW-CWA).”
Many of the IBEW and CWA stewards most “ready to strike” (and with the most strike experience) are wary of any union response this weekend that falls short of an all-out work-stoppage. Yet a traditional strike could be a perilous exercise at Verizon, if it doesn’t have sufficient disruptive impact on the company’s operations. (In 1989, it took more than two months of picketing and other forms of pressure before NYNEX began feeling any noticeable pain—at a time when union members still represented a majority of the employer’s workforce.)
Over the past two decades, due to automation, VZ has developed far greater capacity to weather a conventional walkout by utilizing management personnel, and, most importantly, the parallel workforce provided by its 135,000 nonunion employees and extensive network of contract call centers. (Located in the United States and abroad, these centers are already diverting large amounts of bargaining unit work under “shared call” arrangements that the Verizon unions are trying to curb.)
Only one of the Verizon unions has a strike fund able to provide fixed weekly benefits for thousands of strikers. CWA’s $400 million fund was created after the NYNEX strike bankrupted its previous one; it pays $200 a week initially, and then $300 weekly, if a walkout continues. The IBEW has no mechanism for providing similar financial assistance or even COBRA subsidies if Verizon terminated health insurance as NYNEX did in 1989.
A third way
There is, however, a lower-risk, higher impact alternative available to Verizon activists. That is the strategy of working without a contract, while using accompanying opportunities for direct action that would be both legally protected and disruptive.
In a letter sent last week to both unions, Verizon’s top negotiator opposed any contract extension. He warned that, "if we don't reach agreement by August 6th, the arbitration provisions of the various labor contracts would not be in effect for grievances that arise after the collective bargaining agreements expire” and, therefore, CWA and IBEW “will not be able to grieve and/or arbitrate any discipline, terminations or contract violations."
This was supposed to be a threat (which may soon include suspension of automatic dues deduction when the contract expires). But there is a little-noted upside to this post-expiration scenario—namely, that CWA and IBEW will no longer be bound by their promise not to strike over unresolved grievances during the life of the contract (or any extension of it).
When CWA Local 1298 in Connecticut was faced with similar concession demands by AT&T in 2009, its 5,000 members worked without a contract for 18 months. Techs and service reps continued to mobilize on the job and in the community, union negotiators skillfully avoided bargaining to impasse, and Local 1298 won a series of NLRB cases challenging unilateral changes and disciplinary action that management tried to take against union activists.
Local negotiators were finally forced to accept some premium-sharing, based on the contract pattern already established elsewhere at AT&T in 2009. Meanwhile, 1,298 members and their families avoided paying several thousand dollars for their benefits during the long period when the old medical plan provisions remained in effect, while negotiations continued.
If Verizon continues to insist on cost-shifting and other givebacks, a CWA-IBEW decision to continue working would enable members to pursue the higher impact of strategy of striking selectively over unresolved grievances.
Any group of workers—in a single garage, call center, department or larger part of the bargaining unit—would be free to engage in carefully planned grievance strikes (of varying duration) after the third and final step of the contract grievance procedure, which remains in effect, has been exhausted.
These job actions would have to be unrelated to issues unresolved at the bargaining table. While most members continued to work and collect a full pay check, the unions would be free to escalate their anti-concessions campaign in public, building additional support from labor, consumer, and political allies around the country.
Fighting back in this fashion requires discipline, flexibility, creativity and a widely-shared rank-and-file understanding of why it's necessary. Staying on the job and using the right to strike over grievances throws the company a curve ball that management hasn't seen before. It minimizes the cost and risk of striking, while keeping the company guessing about what part of its operation might be affected next. It might even give Verizon greater incentive to settle than if everyone walks out together on August 7 and an army of replacement workers, already in place, is able to maintain customer service without little or no interruption.
Steve Early, a labor journalist and former CWA representative, was involved in organizing, bargaining, contract campaigns and strikes at Verizon (and its predecessor companies) from 1980 to 2007. He is the author, most recently, of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, which describes the 1989 struggle against healthcare cost shifting at NYNEX.
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Comments
With all due respect to my brother and friend Steve Early, this article seems like a long winded call for retreat and surrender at Verizon.
Yes, “The culture of “no contract, no work” is almost extinct in the United States, where strike activity has reached an all-time low.”
That doesn’t meant that the members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America should follow down that road of retreat and surrender!
Apparently, many telephone workers agree with me on this “Many of the IBEW and CWA stewards most “ready to strike” (and with the most strike experience) are wary of any union response this weekend that falls short of an all-out work-stoppage.”
Despite that, it appears that Brother Early lacks their fighting spirit, “strategy of working without a contract, while using accompanying opportunities for direct action that would be both legally protected and disruptive.”
Instead of retreating and surrendering, the telephone workers could stand and fight and hold out a beacon of militancy to show the rest of the working class how to resist.
Strikes can be won, if you are serious about striking
To put it bluntly, even in this era of working class defeat, most scabs are unwilling to put their personal safety at risk to scab.
To be even more blunt, fiber optic cables are very fragile things and can be easily cut with simple hand tools - make enough cuts, scattered around in enough service boxes, manholes and telephone poles around the system and the scabs will have a hell of a time fixing all the damage.
It takes a fight to win - and even if the telephone workers lose, it is far better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
“Gregory Butler”- You realize what you are advocating is a Federal crime ?!?!? :
“To be even more blunt, fiber optic cables are very fragile things and can be easily cut with simple hand tools - make enough cuts, scattered around in enough service boxes, manholes and telephone poles around the system and the scabs will have a hell of a time fixing all the damage.”
You are a typical union thug who believes the ends justifies the means. Well, I want you to know that in my tool kit- that I’ll be carrying as I proudly cover Special Services as a non-union VzBus. employee- I’ll be carrying my personal HD camcorder to record any crminal activity…hopefully if that kind of criminal activity takes place I’ll be able to help put the goon away in the federal pen for about 10years…..
Campbell, you are a typical scab who grovels before the bosses while stabbing his fellow workers in the back.
That’s all I have to say to you.
The main problem is that union “leaders” in the AFL-CIO affiliates are not fully discussing the problems and exploring all options with union members.
Workers have a right to have all the options and solutions placed before them with ample time for collective discussions.
It is up to workers if they want to decide to go the way Gregory Butler is suggesting.
I fail to see what something “illegal” has to do with whether or not this is discussed.
Such basic weapons as the boycott are often illegal; but, again, workers have a right to be advised of the option and consequences.
Workers in many industries will be facing lock-outs as employers find they can hire scabs fairly cheaply so plant take-overs are going to have to be considered.
AFL-CIO affiliated unions are almost exclusively depending on the Democrats to solve their problems.
What is with Larry Cohen announcing he is supporting Obama for re-election?
At some point political action has to mirror the struggles in the workplace because if workers think Democratic politicians are going to solve their problems they will not even consider more direct and militant actions—- including strikes.
Building a labor-based people’s party would correspond to building more militant activity in the workplace.
Class collaboration at the polls encourages a corresponding class collaboration in the work-place.
The result is militant sounding speeches by these labor leaders who abandon workers when they need their support the most.
For all practical purposes, rank-and-file workers have been abandoned by their “leaders” in the workplace and at the polls.
Workers voting for Obama are not going to even consider the kind of measures Steve or Gregory are suggesting.
You hit the nail on the head, Alan - political class collaboration at the ballot box and labor class collaboration at the workplace go hand-in-hand!
It really isn’t that surprising that Larry Cohen would simultaneously prepare to surrender to Verizon on the job and give President Obama a political blank check for the next election, despite the president’s betrayal of the working class voters who got him elected.
There is nothing “new” about any of these tactics - American labor has been going down this bad road for a long long long time.
I hope that they do strike. Verizon has already proven that they can operate and make profit with a reduced workforce. Those who are nonunion have been butchered by the layoffs for 3 years now and the company is doing just fine. Everyone who thinks that Verizon will start hiring again once the economy has finally made a turn for the better are sorely mistaken! As I stated before, Verizon has already proven that they can operate and post profits under a smaller workforce.
The Northeast has been decimated by layoffs over the years. That combined with the traditional “blue collar” jobs going away, the northeast has a terrible job market. Let them strike, Verizon will lock them out . All of those who have lost their jobs and are getting ready to or already have lost their unemployment will cross the picket lines in droves!
Then the poor union employees will be permanently out of jobs and Verizon will have a new freshman class of employees who want to work and are greatful to have jobs.
Be careful what you wish for, Ian.
There is a LOT of outrage among the common people against the excesses of the corporate greedheads. Those folks very well might be galvanized by the sight of a brave handful of workers defying the odds and standing up and screaming NO MAS to the corporate profiteers!
Hell, they might even do like the Greeks and the Spaniards and take to the streets and join them!
American workers are sick and tired of having to bow and scrape before the plutocrats haughty demand that we “be grateful to have a job”!
The corporate scum should be grateful that we let them live off the fruit of our labor - and they may soon learn the price of their arrogance.
As for scissor bills like you, when the time comes, you will get up off your knees and join us in resisting. I’ll shake your hand and tell you welcome aboard.
We live in a capitalist society. If the union doesn’t like the current proposal by Verizon, let them try to secure another contract for those workers with another telecom carrier.
The Unions have outlived their purpose. With the creation of OSHA, there are now FEDERAL GUIDELINES dictating safety in the workplace enviroment. Frankly….what the Verizon is asking of the CWA/IBEW is simply bringing that SMALL portion of the work force inline with the other 135,000 other nonunion employees.
The Union Mentality astounds me. They have such a sense of entitlement and believe that they are “owed” these jobs.
Ian, in democratic capitalist societies, workers have the right to collectively bargain with their employers through their labor unions.
That is a human right sanctioned by the United Nations, and accepted by every country in the world except for Belarus, North Korea, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
What part of that don’t you understand?
Also, why is a labor hater like you even on a pro socialist website like this?
Wouldn’t you feel more at home at Free Republic?
Either way….. Verizon wins, either the Union accepts their contract terms or they strike. If the union strikes, Verizon will lock them out and the union is busted. If they don’t strike it means that CWA/IBEW accepted the terms as Verizon proposed them. Either way….Verizon WINS.
“in democratic capitalist societies, workers have the right to collectively bargain with their employers through their labor unions.”
Like I previously stated….If the union is unhappy with the current proposal they are free to try and negotiate a new contract with another Telecommunications provider in the Northeast.
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched, Ian!
If the CWA and IBEW decided to go on strike at Verizon and be SERIOUS about effective picketing/alternative tactics (see comment above) then Verizon could very well lose.
If an agreement isn’t reached by 0000 est on Aug 6, Verizon has the option to lock out the union as there is no contract in place. So the alternative tactics wouldn’t work.
Ian, I wasn’t referring to the retreat and surrender “alternative tactics” enumerated in the article.
I was referring to the kind of “alternative tactics” that involve the delicacy/sensitivity to damage of fiber optic cable
The vast majority of Fiber Optic cable is either Aerial(100+ feet above the ground) or buried. So that tactic can only be so successful.
Much less….are you really prepared to go to prison to try and keep your job? What you are suggesting is vandalism at the very least. If/when caught not only will you go to prison, but Verzion will then go after you in a civil lawsuit to recoup money lost from your “end justifies the means” approach. So by all means….please vandalize!
Aerial fiber optic cable is attached to telephone poles (most of which are way lower than 100 feet - try 20) or pylons, which are climbable - underground cable is accessible by manhole covers.
Also, all of that cable ends up going into the customer’s premises - usually at ladder height at the highest.
I vividly remember the 1989 telephone strike in New York - there was massive disruption to phone service here, and the phone company never caught anybody, despite a reward, so the jail and fines are empty threats.
As for going to jail to defend workers rights I don’t actually work at Verizon (I’m a union carpenter) however I’m sure there are CWA and IBEW members bold and brave enough to do just that.
As I said above it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees - not everybody likes groveling before the money power like you do, Ian.
-“As I said above it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees - not everybody likes groveling before the money power like you do, Ian. “
Typical union mentality….. for some reason you feel the need to try and belittle people who don’t believe in your elitist union ideology.
I hate to be the one to tell you this Ian, but you don’t understand what the word elitist means.
Here, let me assist you, my deluded scissor bill scab friend!
An elitist is one who believes in elitism
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, elitism means;
ELITISM
1
: leadership or rule by an elite
2
: the selectivity of the elite; especially : snobbery <elitism in choosing new members>
3
: consciousness of being or belonging to an elite
Now, as a union member who believes in fighting for the betterment of the common people, I am the antonym of elitist!
Since you are the person in this conversation who praises members of the capitalist elite who violate the human rights of workers, I suspect that you and not I are the elitist here.
Gregory-
I stand corrected, thank you for that.
Again…..your Neanderthal thinking brings you back to attempting to insult me. You really have no valid argument other than you have been indoctrinated into the Union ENTITLED mindset. You feel that your employer “OWES” you a job and wage, which they do not. NO ONE owes you anything! Your ability to stay gainfully employed should be dictated by the work you perform. Not taking advantage of of some BS contract that you think you are OWED because you have neither the aptitude or the mental capacity to achieve higher education.
When CWA/ IBEW gets locked out of Verizon, they can hold hands with their brothers and sisters who got forced out by GE in the unemployment line wondering how they are going to support their families.
Again….NO ONE OWES YOU A DAMN THING! You probably think that drug testing welfare recipients is wrong too. You my Friend simply want to take advantage of the system so you can do the bare minimum work and still collect an unreasonably high wage.
Again…..if the CWA/ IBEW doesn’t like the current proposal by Verizon, they are free to secure a contract with another telecom company in the NorthEast. Lest you forget…..those 35,000 employees who are getting ready to strike NEED those jobs! Not want….but NEED!
And while you are at it, can you please provide one example of how your HUMAN RIGHTS as a worker have been violated.
Ian,
It’s kind of obvious you’re some kind of Ayn Rand worshiping libertarian.
The problem is, contrary to what that sociopath has to say in her poorly written and deeply anti human screeds, in the real world, there are only two sources of economic value - labor and natural resources (and you can’t extract the second without the first).
Consequently, the employers, who enrich themselves off of our labor, actually DO owe workers a job with decent wages and benefits
Period,
Full Stop.
We as workers are the ones doing the ruling rich a huge favor by letting them live parasitically off of our labor.
As for your human rights question, just go to the website of the International Labour Organization where you can read all about the human right that workers have to unionize without management interference.
Gregory,
I asked how YOUR human rights as a worker have been violated, not someone you nor I know living in a 3rd world country.
What are you basing you “Decent Wage” argument on? Statistical data or your perception fo what you are OWED/ENTITLED? I am going to go out on a limb here and say its what you think you are owed/entitled.
Again….let the CWA/ IBEW secure a contract elsewhere if they don’t like it. You seem to have no argument for that one!
Ian,
Don’t bother arguing with an idiot.
Gregory—
Consider those people who may be in need of emergency assistance but help never comes because the call wouldn’t go though and YOU did that.
Apparently, contrary to Brother Early, 45,000 Verizon workers decided to go with the old strike tactics:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/us/07verizon.html?_r=1&hp;
Congratulations, and good luck!
Ian, I told you to go to the ILO website and look up the relevant conventions that spell out the human right of workers to organize, bargain and strike.
Campbell, any mishaps that happen because of disrupted phone service are Verizon’s fault; if they had been reasonable with their workers, their wouldn’t be a strike.
Verizon is asking that the 45,000 union employees begin doing what the other 135,000 employees are doing (i.e. share insurance premiums, raises based on performance, fewer sick days, fewer holidays). And somehow that translates into unreasonable working conditions? Give me a break. I hope they enjoy that $200 per week standing on the picket line. Its unreasonable to think that the union employees should be hand held and coddled by the company just because they are a union. They need to pull their head out of their collective asses and realize that while they are on the sidewalk making pennies and their kids are starving, there’s a line at the back door filled with the unemployed that would be more than grateful to have a job. Who is going to provide for them once the $$ runs out?
The CBW/IBEW is in a bad spot thinking that VZB will succumb to their “demands”. In this economy with the number of people looking for jobs, replacing them won’t be an issue. The most important thing I’ve learned about business is you don’t make decisions with your ego. Cutting off your nose to spite your face just doesn’t make sense. Its one thing to be proud. Its another to be stupid.
You say “it is far better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”. I say its far better to be in with your head than out on your ass.