NEW YORK CITY, May 14—The strike of almost 40,000 Verizon workers is entering its sixth week. The strikers are members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). They install and service Verizon’s wireline telephone and FiOS Internet and television service.
This is an important strike in a time when strikes are all too rare. These verizons workers and their unions are up against one of the giants of the telecommunications industry. Verizon makes more than $1.5 billion in profit every month, and CEO Lowell McAdams makes $18 million a year. Last year, the wireless unit brought in $91.7 billion in total revenue, up 5 percent from the year before, with a profit of nearly $30 billion. The older wireline unit brought in $37.7 billion, a 2% decline from the year before, with $2.2 billion in profit.
However to meet the fierce global competition in the telecommunication industry, Verizon is trying to cut labor costs by forcing workers to pay more for health care and outsourcing call centers to super-exploited workers in Mexico and the Philippines where they pay workers $2.00/hour. In addition, Verizon wants to assign workers out-of-state for up to two months and keep their wireless retail stores non-union, all the while refusing to bargain a contract with the small number of union retail wireless stores.
Verizon is using supervisors from out of town to scab on the strike, and running help-wanted ads to hire temporary workers as strike- breakers. Strikers have picketed the hotels where the scabs are being housed and in a few instances have forced them out. But more needs to be done because Verizon is fighting back tooth and nails. Recently, the company cancelled the health insurance of the strikers to try to force them back to work.
Verizon is confident they can wear down the CWA leadership. After all, they did just that in the 2012 contract fight when Chris Shelton, who was Local 1109 President then and CWA International President now, convinced members to accept health care give backs and to give up pensions for new hires. Sheldon told workers not to worry because “…the company has barely hired anyone new over the last decade. There’s no army of new hires waiting outside Verizon’s doors.” However, after a series of buyouts of senior workers and outsourcing by Verizon, there will soon be an army of new hires coming from the army of the unemployed black, Latin and women workers who largely make the up the workforce at Verizon retail stores. Verizon, with vault’s full of racist super profits, is now coming back to exploit workers even more.
The striking unions are now calling on other unions, student and community groups to Adopt-a-Store and join the picket lines one or two days a week. And we should. Although unions cannot solve the conditions of the working class, they are great channels through which workers can be organized for communist revolution. Moreover, adopting a store and joining the picket line is a great way to meet and get to know striking Verizon workers, who right now, are at bat for the whole working class. Through these means, we can have many discussions with workers, make friends and start to build relationships. This how a Verizon striker came to speak at our May Day march in Brooklyn. Let’s join hands with our brothers and sisters in their fight against Verizon and one day in the fight to abolish capitalism in its’ entirety.