NEARLY 40,000 Verizon workers, who have been on strike since April 13, are celebrating big gains after reaching a tentative agreement with the company – after 45 days of the largest strike in recent history.
Verizon will add 1,300 new East Coast call centre jobs, and reverse several other outsourcing initiatives that will create new field technician jobs. The four-year proposed agreement provides 10.9% in raises, a $1,250 signing bonus in the Mid-Atlantic and a $1,000 signing bonus plus a $250 healthcare reimbursement account in the Northeast, $2800 minimum in profit sharing, pension increases, and a first contract for Verizon Wireless retail store employees in Brooklyn, NY and Everett, MA.
‘CWA appreciates the persistence and dedication of Secretary Perez, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director Allison Beck and their entire teams. The addition of good new jobs at Verizon is a huge win not just for striking workers, but for our communities and the country as a whole.
‘This contract is a victory for working families across the country and an affirmation of the power of working people,’ said Chris Shelton, President of the Communications Workers of America. It proves that when we stand together we can raise up working families, improve our communities and advance the interests of America’s working people.
‘Our children and our families have been depending on us to stand up for what’s right and what’s fair,’ said Fitzgerald Boyce, a Verizon field technician based in New York. Striking wasn’t an easy decision for our families, but we knew that we had to fight to save good jobs and our way of life. We fought hard and we won.
‘Because we fought together as a union, my kids will be able to see me at night. We were all so worried about the potential of transfers and more offshoring, but now Verizon is going to bring more jobs back. All American companies should be doing more to keep good jobs in the country,’ said Christina Martin, a Verizon call centre worker in Pennsylvania.
‘For the first time, Verizon Wireless retail workers have a union and a fair contract,’ said Mike Tisei, a Verizon Wireless retail worker in Everett, Massachusetts. For the wireless retail workers who joined CWA in 2014, that means a better quality of life and meaningful economic security for our families. Today is a great day for my family and working families along the East Coast, and it’s only possible because we stood together.’
‘We secured a contract our members can be proud of. It secures additional good middle class jobs for our members in the Mid-Atlantic and keeps them in our communities,’ said CWA District 2-13 Vice President Ed Mooney. We were able to push back against a number company demands and achieve a contract that includes new job growth, specifically 850 call centre jobs, returns work to union members; keeps centers from being closed and job security is intact and provides improvements in retirement benefits. I am so proud of the members for standing together and standing up for themselves; our communities, the customers and their families.’
‘After more than six weeks on the picket line, Verizon workers won an excellent new contract that will protect good jobs and preserve our standard of living. The members’ unity and determination defeated company proposals to outsource and contract out work, and the new agreement will create 1,500 new union jobs up and down the East Coast,’ said Dennis G. Trainor, Vice President of CWA District One.
‘Together, we are turning the tide from cutbacks against working people to building a stronger labour movement and strengthening the power of working Americans. And, for the first time in history, Verizon Wireless retail employees in Brooklyn, NY and Everett, MA will have a union contract that improves working conditions and gives workers a united voice on the job.’
Striking workers will be back on the job today, Wednesday, June 1st. Those with evening shifts that go past midnight on June 1st were back on the job at the beginning of their shifts yesterday, Tuesday, May 31. Highlights from the proposed agreement, which will be presented to members for a ratification vote after the return to work, include:
• A 10.9% raise over the next four years with compounded interest, including 3% upon ratification, and 2.5% on each anniversary of the contract.
• 1,250 signing bonus in the Mid-Atlantic and a $1000 signing bonus plus $250 healthcare reimbursement account in the Northeast, and a minimum of $700 in corporate profit sharing payments in each of the next four years.
• The first contract ever for nearly 70 Verizon Wireless retail store workers
• All call centres that had been threatened with closure in the Mid-Atlantic region will remain open. Three of the five threatened call centres in upstate New York will also remain open; the six workers affected in the other two centres will be offered jobs locally in the company.
• The new contract guarantees that an increased percentage of customer service work will be handled by unionised workers. As a result, Verizon will add 1,300 call centre jobs, 850 in the Mid-Atlantic region and 450 in the Northeast.
• Several major contracting initiatives will be reversed, sustaining work for union members in their communities and returning a significant amount of pole maintenance work to the unionised workforce in New York State. There will be a 25% increase in the number of unionised crews doing pole work in New York State.
• Existing job security language will be preserved, as will existing language on transfer and seniority protections for retirement incentives. All of the company’s proposals on forced interstate transfers of technicians were withdrawn.
• All proposed reductions of pensions were withdrawn by the company, and there will be three 1% increases in the defined benefit pensions over the life of the agreement.
• The company agreed to terminate a performance supervisory programme (known as QAR) in effect in the five boroughs of New York City that workers found extremely abusive, and both parties will work with an outside consultant to develop a non-punitive programme. This was a major issue for NYC-based technicians.
• Proposed cuts in accident and disability benefits were withdrawn. The parties agreed to changes to active and retiree healthcare that generate savings to the company while protecting excellent plan designs for medical care.
McDonald’s workers fight for $15 an hour
McDonald’s workers have stepped up their fight for $15-an-hour. Hundreds of low-paid workers from across the US and other countries marched outside McDonald’s headquarters last Thursday, demanding a $15-an-hour wage, as shareholders held their annual meeting in Oak Brook, Illinois.
The activists, many of them McDonald’s employees, said that they represented 300 cities and 20 countries. The demonstrators also included health care workers, airport workers, and others fighting for a $15 minimum wage. ‘It’s not just fast food. McJobs are costing us all. If you make less than $15 an hour, you work at a McJob, sorry to tell you,’ said one protester.
Black, brown, white, young and old; workers marched through the sprawling McDonald’s campus as the shareholders were meeting. Twenty-four busloads of protesters marched down Jorie Boulevard in Oak Brook to the gatehouse of the McDonald’s corporate campus.
‘Yes sir, we’re fired, up, and we’re not taking no more. We’re fed up with all this. We’re fed up with not being able to feed our kids. And this is something that’s giving a lot of workers hope. And this is something that’s changing lives. And if we get $15, that’s going be a life-changing thing,’ one worker said.
McDonald’s told employees at its Oak Brook offices to work from home last Thursday, due to the large demonstration. Approximately 300 police officers stood by during the rally. KFC worker Anthony Kemp said he was marching in solidarity with his fellow fast food workers. ‘We work very hard for our families to provide for ourselves and our families and right now this living wage just isn’t cutting the mustard,’ he said.
Supporter Eiden Spilker said he is working a minimum wage job for the first time in his life. ‘I have realised that I can’t sustain a lifestyle on this,’ he said. Gail Rogers came all the way from Florida to march in the rally and said she was enjoying herself, ‘because it’s for a good reason; something that will help me in the long run. I know, not just believe, I know we are going to get to $15,’ she said.
More than 100 demonstrators spent the night before the march camped out in a tent city outside McDonald’s headquarters. The tent city and overnight campout was intended as a physical display of McDonald’s workers’ dismay as shareholders gather for their annual meeting.
The upset employees also want the public to know they feel they aren’t getting a fair wage. ‘Everyone here has such a great energy. No matter how the rain and everything, no matter what, our energy is strong, and we’re going to keep doing it until we are heard and seen,’ McDonald’s worker Andrea Meadors said.
Last Thursday’s rally followed a huge demonstration in downtown Chicago on Wednesday, after thousands of employees walked off the job and onto the picket line. They disrupted the lunch hour at the Rock N Roll McDonald’s in the River North neighbourhood. The workers said their current $10-an-hour pay doesn’t cut it in Chicago.
