Verizon Strike: Why Unions Are Reluctant To Walk Off Job

Photo Credit: Marc Torrence

As nearly 40,000 Verizon employees work the picket lines, one of the more vivid elements of the strike isn't just the sheer number of people involved but rather how rare such work actions have become.

“In the early to mid-seventies, there were as many as 400 strikes a year in the United States that involved more than 1,000 workers in each,” said Peter Rachleff, history professor at Macalester College.

Strikes of 1,000 workers or more happen now maybe only 10 or 20 times a year; a strike the size of Verizon's hasn't been seen since 2011. Each strike carries with it substantial risks, because a strike's failure can have far-reaching effects.

All eyes in the fight over union power are watching the Verizon strike closely. “Is this strike an expression of new confidence, new strength, new ability, on the part of unions?” asked Rachleff.

If the unions succeed in extracting their demands for greater worker protections, greater job security, a cessation to Verizon’s offshoring of jobs, better benefits and less time away from home, it may embolden other unions to follow with their own strikes.

But if Verizon workers fail to win significant concessions from management, it may be seen as a devastating blow to a labor movement in decline.

Losing power

Technological changes have lessened the potential public impact of the Verizon strike.

"A telephone company can keep operating when there’s a strike,” explained Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Labor, Work, and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara.

“You don’t have women sitting at desks anymore, plugging in wires.”

Source: Reynermedia via Flickr

The automated nature of landline, wireless and internet services means that when the workers go on strike, these services can continue to function. The unions argue that maintenance, new customer signups and service outages will all be affected by the strike, but it’s unclear how much leverage this actually gives the workers.

Without a major impact on the lives of customers, Verizon management may feel comfortable waiting the unions out. And as workers protest or stay home, they’re also losing wages.

Joshua Freeman, a distinguished professor of history at CUNY with ties to some of those involved in the Verizon strike, said he wasn't surprised that the union leaders made this choice after many months of negotiating.

He also expressed confidence that, strategically, the union knows what it's doing. The Communications Worker of America, which represents the majority of workers involved in the Verizon strike, represents around 700,000 workers in both the public and private sector.

“It’s a very sophisticated union,” he argued.

But he admitted that even the best of unions are taking big risks when they go on strike. ”Strikes can hurt people. They hurt consumers and users of services, but they also can hurt the people engaged in [the strike], unless there’s a strategy that can ensure victory.”

Before the World War II, strikes were frequently sites of violence. At the teamster strike of 1934 in Chicago, two replacement workers were killed early on, and police later fired on 67 striking workers. The conflict extended for months.

Strikers clash with police in Minneapolis in 1934. Source: Wikimedia Commons

This kind of violence has declined in the post-war era. But even in the ‘70s, large-scale strikes had a daunting societal impact, like that of 200,000 postal workers who stopped working in 1970 which prompted President Nixon to bring in military service members to take over essential mail delivery.

Part of the reason strikes have declined is that the risks associated with these actions may seem less worth taking. Verizon workers may reasonably be afraid that in a relatively weak economic climate, management could find enough replacement workers to significantly reduce the financial impact of the strike.

The failure of many large strikes in 1980s confirmed these types of fears. And now many blame growing economic inequality, stagnant wages, and loss of job security on the decline of strikes and the weakening of unions.

Joe Burns, author of Reviving the Strike, argues that workers will never regain a significant amount of power without bringing back the culture of strikes that used to define much of American labor politics.

If this is right, the stakes of the Verizon strike are all that much higher.

The public’s opinion of strikes

With the decline in the power of unions to have economic impact, public opinion of strikes may be a significant factor in their success or failure. Large companies like Verizon could risk public backlash if they’re seen as refusing reasonable union demands. That’s why the union is sure to point out the company’s billion dollar profits and multi-million dollar executive salaries.

But as strikes have become less common in American life, there are many people growing up today who may have little opinion on the matter.

Freeman explains that there used to be a much stronger sense of where people stood on the issue of unions, especially in New York City.

“There was a kind of instinctive solidarity, at least among working people,” he explains. “You didn’t cross a picket line, that was a basic moral precept that a lot of people shared.”

Can Verizon workers hope to garner this kind of public sympathy? It’s not clear yet, but they may have one advantage, according to Freeman: “Everyone thinks they’re paying too much for their phone bill, including me,”

Lichtenstein notes that, somewhat ironically, strikes may be more popular than unions at this point.

“Teacher strikes are more popular than they used to be,” Lichtenstein explains. “In Chicago, for example, the teachers have been striking and they’ve gotten lots of support.”

Chicago teachers strike. Photo Credit: Brad Perkins via Wikimedia Commons

In Lichtenstein’s view, public union strikes tend to get support because they’re seen as fighting against elites, a fight that is popular on both the right and left of the political spectrum these days.

And though Verizon is not owned by the government, it is perceived as and functions very much like a public utility; this perception may benefit of the union.

The labor movement’s future

Lichtenstein argued that the Verizon workers may have been emboldened by recent shifts in the political climate. In particular, the success of the pushes for a $15 minimum wage in California and New York (the “Fight for 15”), and the Bernie Sanders campaign’s focus on economic inequality, suggest that workers’ issues may be gaining traction.

“The fight for 15 is very significant, and it’s totally been backed by the union,” Lichtenstein argues. “It demonstrates that there’s a lot of support, not just among the unions, but a lot of other groups, for raising wages and ending inequality.”

But Lichtenstein believes that, while the Fight for 15 is impressive and important, it can’t make up for the labor movement’s loss of union influence.

“The slogan for the movement is $15 and a union,” he said. “But thus far, it has not happened.”

Many companies, like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, have demonstrated recently that they are willing to raises wages under pressure. But they have not come close to allowing their workers to unionize.

Freeman argued that if the Verizon strike succeeds, the impact may be felt throughout the wider labor market. It could prove that large-scale strikes still have a place in the American economy, and may encourage more unionization. Stronger unionization nationally may even have benefits for nonunion workers, by raising standards of acceptable wages and working conditions in society at large.

On the other hand, does this mean the failure of the Verizon strike would doom the labor movement?

Rachleff sees some signs for optimism within a labor movement that doesn't rely on traditional strikes. He pointed to a relatively new tactic of “24-hour strikes,” now being used by some fast food, retail workers, and even nurses. They don’t fit the traditional mold of strikes – the traditional view is that time-limited strikes undermined the purpose of the strike – but Rachleff thinks they have the potential to influence public sentiments.

Rachleff points out that some contemporary unions are trying to broaden their public appeal as well, by including in their demands not just worker’s issues, but issue that affect everyone. Teachers unions, for example, advocate for better services for students, and nurses unions will advocate for better patient care.

“It’s a way to reach public opinion, to connect workers and their issues with the customers, patients and students, and the people who depend on those workers to provide the services that they count on.”

The unions calling for the Verizon strike, at this point, do not seem to be employing this tactic. Their demands are entirely focused on the needs of workers.

If the strike fails, other unions may be discouraged from drastic, large-scale action. But there may yet be other, subtler efforts unions and their allies can use to regain power.