Last week, we announced the next stage in the fight for middle-class jobs at Verizon and Verizon Wireless – joining our brothers and sisters at CWA for our nationwide iWon’t Campaign, asking Americans to delay upgrading to the new iPhone on Verizon Wireless until the company stops trying to downgrade middle class jobs.
The iWon’t campaign, which is backed by an impressive coalition including MoveOn.org, USAction, Jobs with Justice, and National People’s Aciton and other groups, will feature advertising, grassroots outreach and leafleting at hundreds of Verizon Wireless stores.
Throughout the CWA / IBEW strike earlier this year, Jobs with Justice stood with hundreds of thousands of Americans who are sick and tired of profitable companies like Verizon and Verizon Wireless showering millions on their CEOs while taking away good jobs.
Now we are asking everyone who cares about the future of the middle class to help us fight back: Upgrade to the new iPhone on Verizon Wireless only when the Verizon companies stop trying to downgrade their workers and give them a fair contract.
Verizon and Verizon Wireless jump through hoops to avoid paying federal taxes, dole
CWA & IBEW’s two-week strike in August showed Verizon and Verizon Wireless that it could not keep stonewalling at the bargaining table. Several concessionary demands have been removed from the table, including their demand to slash MLK Birthday and Veterans Day as holidays and to eliminate the special city allowance.
Now workers are bargaining from CWA’s proposals to save money on health care without premium sharing and preventing unilateral management changes in health care at Verizon Wireless. And union members are forcing management to focus on our demand to bring thousands of outsourced and off-shored jobs back into the bargaining unit.
There has been progress, but Verizon is still insisting on hundreds of millions in concessions.
It’s time to step up the pressure.
We’re ramping things up with Days of Action next week:
Sept 28th: A national media conference call announcing the escalation of our campaign and our plan to open a new front by focusing on the iPhone 5 release.
Sept. 29th: A day of workplace picketing and rallies to show that we are still angry, still strong, and ready to do whatever it takes.
Sept. 30th – October 1st: Working with allies inside and outside the labor movement,
In Springfield, Massachusetts, over 30 JwJ activists spent Labor Day outside a Verizon Wireless store with a giant rat. Around the rat’s neck: “Don’t Shop @ Verigreedy Wireless.”
In addition to leafleting customers and getting our message to the media and passers-by, JwJ activists committed to stand with Verizon workers until their fight is won.
Chants included, “Hey, Verizon, you can’t hide! We can see your greedy side!” and “Whatever it takes, for as long as it takes!”
IBEW 2324 Business Manager John Rowley exhorted the crowd, “This isn’t just about Verizon. This isn’t just about IBEW and CWA. … We cannot lose sight of what this movement is about. Jobs with Justice says it all!” In Western Massachusetts, JwJ activists will continue leafleting at 4 stores on Wireless Wednesdays and Saturdays, and will add other fun solidarity activities soon!
CWA and IBEW are set to meet today to reconvene bargaining with Verizon. This “reset” of the company’s bargaining position was made possible by the tremendous strike and mobilization efforts of union members and allies like you across the country.
Jobs with Justice coalitions, union members, and allies continue to leaflet at Verizon stores across the country to let Verizon know that we won’t let them get away with gutting good jobs — especially on the heels of news that Verizon pays their CEO more than they pay in U.S. taxes!
But this fight is far from over. Verizon workers need OUR SUPPORT to keep the pressure on!
How you can help:
LEAFLET: There is a new leaflet available for download & distribution at your local Verizon Wireless store. Download a new flyer and organize a group to leaflet. We are particularly focusing our efforts on Wireless Wednesdays from 12-2pm and 5-7pm and Saturdays.
ADOPT A STORE: Can you commit to coordinating activities at a store near you? Can you commit, at a minimum, to activities on Wireless
45,000 Verizon workers went on strike on Sunday, August 7th. On Saturday, August 20th, CWA and IBEW announced that they had reached an agreement on bargaining with Verizon.
The unions did not agree to any of the company’s concessionary demands to reach agreement. Instead, it was the solidarity we all showed that created the opportunity for progress. The strike brought Verizon to their knees and brought the company back to the table negotiate in good faith.
Verizon workers need your help to keep the pressure on to help win a fair contract with decent wages, good benefits and job security. Mobilization continues. We will continue to keep the pressure on until a fair contract is won!
How you can help:
LEAFLET: There is a new leaflet available for download & distribution at your local Verizon Wireless store. Download a new flyer and organize a group to leaflet.
ADOPT A STORE: Can you commit to coordinating activities at a store near you? Can you commit, at a minimum, to activities on Wireless Wednesdays from 12-2pm and 5-7pm and/or Saturdays? Adopt a Store!
Congressman Stephen Lynch, Fall River Mayor William Flanagan and community leaders representing the Massachusetts Workers’ Rights Board reviewed a list of employees at Comcast’s Fall River and Fairhaven locations and then checked it against union authorization cards voluntarily signed by employees at the same locations requesting IBEW Local 2322 to represent them.
Based on their card count, an overwhelming majority of Comcast employees in the above named locations desire to unite in IBEW Local 2322.
Rep. Lynch and Mayor Flanagan sent a letter immediately afterwards, “urging Comcast management to respect the employee majority and voluntarily recognize IBEW Local 2322 as their representative and begin collective bargaining for an agreement covering their wages, benefits and working conditions.”
“We requested the certification because we wanted to prove beyond a doubt to management that a genuine majority of our co-workers want to form a union and begin collective bargaining,” said Brian Almeida, a Comcast technician from the Fall River office who stared with the company in 2001.
Almeida was accompanied at the certification event by about 25 other Comcast employees
The debate over measures to fix America’s broken labor laws took a back seat during the long debate on health care. Now that the focus has shifted to efforts to stimulate economic growth and job creation, it’s time to put workers’ rights front and center.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce along with right-wing noise groups with shady sources of funding put out numerous talking points and videos painting unions as the problem as citing union intimidation as the biggest threat to the rights of working people to decide whether to unionize or not. They even went so far as to hire an actor from The Sopranos (union actors by the way) to create a cartoonish vision of this imagined reality.
The idea that unions are the problem flies so greatly in the face of the reality experienced by countless workers who have been involved in organizing campaigns, that a lie that big can’t be allowed to stand unchallenged. But rather than earnest position papers and counterpoints, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers thought it was time to push back with a video version of how corporations really
Twenty years ago, 60,000 workers from New York City to Maine rallied against healthcare cost-shifting at the telecom giant then known as NYNEX (since “rebranded” as Verizon).
NYNEX was a very profitable, multinational company seeking to capitalize on a demoralizing decade of lost strikes, contract givebacks and widespread unionbusting. At a time when many workers were forced to make concessions, NYNEX strikers held the line for four months and emerged victorious. They successfully resisted the company’s demand that they pay hundreds and eventually thousands of dollars a year for medical benefits. But this singular union win didn’t come cheap. Customer service was disrupted by the work stoppage, resulting in tens of millions of dollars worth of lost wages. Hundreds of strikers were arrested, fired or suspended–and one, Gerry Horgan, was killed on a picket line in Westchester County.
In every other advanced industrial nation, the contentious issue of who pays for medical care was taken off the bargaining table long ago. And no worker would ever lose his or her life defending job-based private health insurance.
To this day, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Last week, we announced the next stage in the fight for middle-class jobs at Verizon and Verizon Wireless – joining our brothers and sisters at CWA for our nationwide iWon’t Campaign, asking Americans to delay upgrading to the new iPhone on Verizon Wireless until the company stops trying to downgrade middle class jobs.
