Striking Verizon Workers March on Boylston Street

Boston, MA - As part of an ongoing East Coast Verizon workers strike, hundreds of local union members took to the streets of Back Bay in protest Thursday.

Wearing red shirts and carrying signs with union slogans, the Verizon workers and their supporters marched from Copley Square to the Boylston Street Verizon Store a few blocks away. Police briefly rerouted traffic on Boylston to make way for the march.

So far, Verizon and the unions have made little progress in a bargaining process, where workers are calling for increased job security and higher wages. The Communication Workers of America District 1, International Brotherhood of Electric Workers Local 2213 and IBEW New England regional committees met Tuesday with Verizon negotiators to no avail.

Around 40,000 Verizon East Coast workers walked off their jobs last week in protest of the stalled negotiations. In Boston, striking workers have been maintaining a presence outside of Verizon stores around town ever since, even if, at times, only a few people man the picket line.

After the march Thursday, several dozen red-shirted workers mingled around Boylston Street, talking in small groups or to the press. The tenor was akin to a Bernie Sanders rally, with repeated mentions of corporate greed and a system that feels rigged against the worker.

"My niece graduated college in 2013, and do you know where she got a job? Japan," said one union stalwart, who identified himself as Mike.

His niece is making a good life overseas, he told Patch, citing her success there as evidence that the American dream is tainted by corporate greed. But Mike couldn't talk long. He had only minutes, he said, before he stopped home for a quick dinner and then got back to picketing.

>> Photos by Alison Bauter, Patch staff