NYC Verizon Workers to Strike Wednesday at 6 AM

With reporting by Tom Davis

UPDATE, Wednesday afternoon: Bernie Sanders joined the picket line in front of Verizon's Downtown Brooklyn location this morning. Video of his speech is available here.

NEW YORK CITY, NY — With no negotiations scheduled, a massive Verizon strike impacting NYC and other cities along the East Coast is now a "sure thing" beginning Wednesday at 6 a.m., union leaders say.

Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers — including 8,000 in NYC, 2,500 of which are Brooklyn-based — are planning a walkout, their union says, that could adversely impact the company's 140 million customers.

The walkout will be one of the largest work actions in any U.S. industry in years.

Representatives of the Communications Workers of America and the Brotherhood of Electrical Engineers said the company refused to meet with the union on Tuesday.

No meeting is planned to happen before the 6 a.m. deadline, the union says, so the strike is on.

"The company refused to meet with us today," Bob Master, a CWA spokesman, told Patch. "Our bargaining teams were available all day long to meet, and they had no interest, apparently."

NYC-based Verizon workers are planning to demonstrate in front of the Verizon-owned tower at 230 West 36th St. in Midtown Manhattan starting 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Verizon representatives say that the company is “fully prepared to serve its customers” in the event of a strike.

The strike, however, could lead to delays impacting customers looking to reconnect to cable television or their internet connections, and even longer waits for new subscribers wanting its FIOS and mobile services.

When 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike in 2011, customers complained of going without Internet service and cable television for two weeks or longer.

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New Jersey-based Verizon says that it has hired thousands of non-union, replacement workers to cover striking employees and is prepared for however long is necessary.

In a Monday joint statement, labor leaders with IBEW Local 827 and CWA Local 1000 said that 39,000 East Coast workers plan to “stand up for working families” against “Verizon’s corporate greed.”

Wednesday's strike, they said, comes as a last resort after 10 months of "trying to reach a fair contract" with Verizon management. Among other grievances, union leaders cited the company's recent push to offshore jobs and, locally, its cuts to the "vital staff" needed to roll out the FiOS high-speed broadband service it promised New York City.

The same statement quoted Isaac Collazo, a Verizon technician and CWA member from Brooklyn who has worked at Verizon for 19 years.

“Our families and our customers deserve more from Verizon,” Collazo said. “Through our hard work, Verizon is making record profits while our families are left with threats to our jobs and our customers aren’t getting the service they need. Striking is a hardship for our families, but we need to remind Verizon executives that the people who build their profits are a critical reason for the company’s success."

Photo by Brad Clinesmith/Flickr