Verizon Strike To End On Tuesday

It looks like the strike will be over Tuesday, at least for now. The Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have agreed to go back while they continue negotiations. Here's a quote from the Pittsburg Business Times published at 6:24 PM today.

"We have reached agreement with Verizon on how bargaining will proceed and how it will be restructured," said a joint statement released Saturday afternoon by the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers . "The major issues remain to be discussed, but overall, issues now are focused and narrowed."

The two unions and the company will continue to negotiate the sticky points as listed by William Huber, president of IBEW Local 827 in New Jersey:

• Verizon wants to tie pay increases to performance review.
• Verizon wants the union workers to contribute to health-plan premiums.
• Verizon wants to freeze pensions at the end of this year.
• Verizon wants to eliminate the sickness and death program
• Verizon wants to cut the sickness disability benefits from 52 to 26 weeks.

45,000 workers will return to work under the contract that expired on August 6. At this time, there is no specific deadline for a new contract.

Verizon Strike Goes On

The strike continues. Here's some interesting details pulled from a Steven Greenhouse New York Times piece published on August 14:

• Verizon says its unionized workers average $70,000 a year before overtime and $91,000 with overtime. But union officials say only a small percentage of workers earn that much with overtime, an amount they say would require hundreds of hours of it. 
• Company officials note that the average U.S. worker earns $23 an hour, translating to $48,000 a year for a full-time worker. 
• Union officials say Verizon's proposed health insurance changes would cost some workers $6,800 more each year, and its overall proposals would cost workers $20,000 on average each year.
• In addition to the health insurance changes, Verizon has called for a pension freeze, reduction of sick days and elimination of all job security provisions -- a proposal workers fear will lead to far more layoffs and outsourcing, especially of call center workers.

Doug Anderson, a Verizon technician for 15 years is quoted in the piece:

"What we make is just a living wage in the New York area. On what I earn, my family can't even afford to live where I work -- Westchester County (NY). And on what we earn, it's hard to send a child through college."

The estimated median household income for Westchester County, New York in 2009 was $77,189 and the mean price for a detached house was $776,277.

Verizon Strike - Could Be A Long One

I'll front this post by saying my Dad worked for AT&T as a technician for about 30 years, retiring right around divestiture. I was only 11 but remember the long strike (over 100 days) in 1968 like it was yesterday. I've also been teaching telecommunications classes to NYNEX, Bell Atlantic and now Verizon technicians since 1995 as part of the Verizon NextStep program, I've had hundreds of Verizon technicians in my classes and have always been impressed.

Verizon is actually two separate companies when it comes to unionization. There is the landline side - what most of us would call the traditional telephone company. 45,000 Verizon landline employees are unionized and represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). These employees are on the east coast, ranging from D.C. north to Massachusetts. Verizon Wireless is non-union and has coverage across the United States.

It's no secret the landline business is in decline and the company is currently focused on building out the wireless business. Here's the sticky points as listed by William Huber, president of IBEW Local 827 in New Jersey:

• Verizon wants to tie pay increases to performance review.
• Verizon wants the union workers to contribute to health-plan premiums.
• Verizon wants to freeze pensions at the end of this year.
• Verizon wants to eliminate the sickness and death program
• Verizon wants to cut the sickness disability benefits from 52 to 26 weeks.

I've always been impressed with the work ethic of the technicians, starting with my Dad who went about 19 years without taking a sick day. I see the same level of work and family commitment I saw in my Dad in today's Verizon technicians.

I do think this strike could rival my Dad's long 1968 strike in length. Hope I'm wrong.

Update 8/8/11 at 6:39 AM

Here's a piece of an interesting email I got from one of the technicians I had in class a while ago:

"We were told for the last year that Ivan was stepping down as CEO after the contract was done. When the news came out a couple weeks ago that he was stepping down a week before the contract expired, we should have known that was not good. We always received decent contracts from Ivan. From what I hear the company would not back down on any of their demands, even late Saturday, I also heard the union had agreed to pay some towards healthcare."

Ivan Seidenberg worked his way up in the company the old school way, starting as a cable splicer (he was in the union) out of high school. Lowell McAdam, the new President and Chief Executive Officer of Verizon, came up a different path.

CWA, IBEW and Verizon Settle

The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers have tentatively settled on a three year contract, avoiding the 12:01 AM August 11 strike deadline. Here's some details on the agreement from the CWA website:

Verizon will extend union recognition to 600 former MCI technicians at Verizon Business who have been seeking representation for nearly two years.

New opportunities for union workers to provide customer support and service at Verizon Business are also included.

The tentative settlement also eliminates subcontracting of work in a number of job areas, converts many temporary jobs to permanent and brings additional jobs associated with Verizon's cutting edge FiOS technology into the union bargaining units.

Overall, the settlement should create 2,500 new union jobs.

Verizon and the unions have agreed to meet regularly during the course of the new agreement to review technological and business developments affecting employment, which will allow the company to stay current with business opportunities while also insuring that the unions are able to continue to represent employees as the business environment changes.

The settlement preserves fully-paid health care premiums for all active and retired employees.

Future hires will have a defined contribution formula for retirement health care with the amount of Verizon's contributions subject to negotiation in each subsequent contract.

Verizon agreed to work with the unions in a joint effort to achieve meaningful health care reform. The company will provide funding of $2 million per year to the project.

The settlement calls for wage increases totaling 10.87 percent compounded over the three-year contract term.

COLA (cost of living adjustment) language remains in the contract.

Pension bands will be increased by 10.87 percent compounded over the term of the agreement.

The settlement also provides for a streamlined grievance dispute resolution system which will speed up a process that has been taking as long as three years to complete.

Good news for all - workers, Verizon, the unions and most importantly...... Verizon customers.

Will They Strike? Deadline Monday, August 11, 12:01 AM

Negotiations continue at this time between the IBEW, CWA and Verizon. From the CWA website yesterday: the CWA/IBEW Unified Bargaining Committees set a bargaining deadline of Monday, Aug. 11, 12:01 AM for completing contract negotiations with Verizon. At that time, the existing contract that was extended last weekend will expire. Strike action then becomes possible if a fair settlement is not reached.

Been some rumors flying around but I'm not going to tell. It has not been settled yet - will they get it done? I'm still guessing yes!

Will Verizon, the CWA and the IBEW Avoid a Strike?

My Dad worked for AT&T as a lineman/installer repairman and one of my strongest memories growing up is of my Dad on strike in 1968. I was 11 and thought having my Dad home all summer was the greatest thing in the world. He'd go picket a few hours and the rest of the day my two brothers, sister and Mom had him at home. Looking back it was probably a pretty rough summer financially for my parents - when you are on strike you do not get paid. I remember doing a lot of fishing which, to us kids, was a lot of fun but the more I think about it we were probably fishing to put food on our table! We also had a large vegetable garden - fresh fish, tomatoes, corn, peas, beans, peppers, my father home almost all the time and the Red Sox the year after 1967 - it was a great summer.

The four of us kids also learned some valuable lessons about dedication, teamwork, commitment and holding to our beliefs that summer - my Dad could have decided to work and let his union brothers and sisters take the hit but he did not. We also learned a few new words including what a scab and a strikebreaker were.

Fast forward to last Saturday, a little before midnight, when the latest contract expired - Verizon, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) agreed to stop the contract clock and continue to negotiate. Issues on the table include job security, health care and what kind of work the unionized workers are doing - fundamentally the same issues my Dad struck for 40 years ago.

A strike this summer would be significant for the workers, the company and for all of us that live and work in Verizon country. The timing is never right for a strike but, with the massive roll-out of optical services and the convergence of voice, video and data over IP (Internet Protocol), the stakes are probably higher this round than they have ever been. Negotiations have continued over the past two days in an attempt to finalize a new contract and there has been little news. Talks continue right at the minute I'm writing this. Continued focused discussion with no media leaks.... I see this as good news and am thinking this one may just get settled without a strike.