CWA locals voting on Verizon strike authorization

STAND STRONG UNION LOCAL 2108 ... COMMUNICATION WORKERS OF AMERICA UNITE! D-DAY AUG 2ND 1159P

New York Tel, Nynex, Bell Atlantic, or Verizon I don't care what they call themselves we have shown them before and we will show them again they aren't the ones running the company we are. It's our sweat that give this country its Telephone, Internet and TV. They need to be reminded that we will not back down and we will never give up what our members fought for in the past. We don't want to go on strike, we don't wanna walk a picket line in the August heat but we will because they force us to. CWA Local 1104. Union and Proud.

CWA's got a lot of balls. Poor you!

Well over half of all Verizon workers are not members of the union. In fact, most are contractors hired via agencies on statement of work contracts (many from India via H2B-abuse, when there are plenty of American workers who would like the job).

Using statement of work workers in this way Verizon gets around the abuse of contractor labor violations that Microsoft employees sued over and won back when they were being kept on 5 and 10 year contracts - with no benefits, but were being made to work like employees.

I'll care about CWA, when it is looking out for it's fellow workers as part of their strike, we who do the lion's share along side them.

Every three years without fail the battle has to be fought. When will it end? The arrogance of Verizon, a company who has made billions of dollars on the backs of their non union employees at Wireless. Despite all this revenue there are still known as the "Pothole on the information super highway" too many "old school" ways of operating....

Let's face it Verizon it's time to settle this matter with CWA and move on together to approach the new technologies and perhaps all involved will reap the rewards.

You have not come very far from the 1970's and the New York Telephone mentallity......

Go ahead and go out on strike. Im sure that there are plenty of ex military and cable/satellite installers that will gladly take your jobs. Unions need to realize that they are nearly dead. As for the selfih greedy union mentality workers,whos gonna keep you from financial ruin when you lose your jobs? Your precious union??

Went to Verizon.com to apply for a job. Just waiting for you morons to walk out and lose it all. Good luck finding healthcare as good as you have it now. Do you know a good bankruptcy attorney? After Verizon fires you all, you might need one.

Sadly the CWA wishes to continue the warm featherbeds and fat benefits that are relics of the past. It seems on the surface that the leadership of the Unions have not explained that the door to the goody locker is closing. These unions are relics of the days of Rockefeller and Stanford. These precious jobs they wish to protect will be moved into the hands of non-union workers who are motivated to perform and not grumble over minor infractions of rules dating back to the 1800's. How many employees in modern industry have non-contributory pension benefits? I would suggest that the sunset is on the horizon for these excesses.

As a former Verizon manager forced to work 24/7 to stay employed, I say God Bless America and our Unions. I wish that our management teams had had union protection. I might still be a manager for Verizon, instead of employed. I lost a pension, lost benefits, and ended up losing a job. Please stand strong.

And what do you do to fight for workers rights or your own for that .I am sick of people like you that talk like this .As if the union be it any union is some outside group .Any union is the people who belong to it and is only as good as the blood and sweat put into it by it's members who make it a union . IBEW LOCAL 827 stay strong and walk the line along side your cwa brothers as I know we will.8/2/08

Good luck striking against MCI... you're going to need all the luck you can get!

As a former Verizon manager and retiree, I can tell you that the real losers in this whole situation are the lower level management folks who will inevitably get dumped on by the Verizon Executives and upper management and catch some hell from the Union folks as well. Using poorly trained, overworked, and stressed out low level managers is no way for Verizon to counter the efforts of the unions on this matter. I know, I've been there many times. I hope the Unions put the squeeze bigtime on those over-compensated, under-performing Verizon Execs, who are the real problem and major impediment to real progress at that company. Seeing a few heads roll in the ivory towers in NY and TX would do this company some good! CWA and IBEW....hang in there!

unionism = communism
go picket in hell comrades.

Verizon's intention is to let the strikers walk, wait, fire them and replace them with non union workers from the cable industry that currently make alot less than these spoiled union workers. Face it, Verizon DOESN"T care about your demands. first a walkout, then a lockout, then replacement. The union has 200 million in the bank. What do you have?

Communist? Not THIS two time veteran of the US Army Infantry and Verizon splicer. Your opinions of this union are misguided at best. My coworkers and I are hard working, and we don't quibble about "coffee breaks" and ancient outdated union rules. I spend every day trying to band-aid the old plant to keep it working because all of the Verizon budget is now in FiOS, AND I smile at the customers and only say good things about my company. Unions are necessary to protect us poor sots from the greed of overpaid CEO's (Enron anyone?). Instead of whining about how some union worker is getting more than you, why don't you do what I did and get yourself IN that union and EARN that pay? Where do you think all the extra profit margin will go if Verizon fires it's union? To help eliminate hunger in this world? Fat chance. If Verizon had it's way we'd be run like Comcast, underpaid unmotivated non-union poor people who change jobs every few years while their CEO's rake it in. I hope you crybabies try to cross MY picket line.

The CWA has 200 million dollars. THe UAW has even more. Look at the auto workers and what their greed through the years has done to their jobs. When you walk, Verizon will replace you with cable workers or whoever else wants to work. Have you seen the economy lately?? Is your precious union going to pay your bills or give you peanuts while they rake in your union dues. I hate to tell you but the UPS strike in 1997 did nothing more than screw the workers. Fed X ground was born due to that strike ans has taken money from UPS ever since.Take money from the company,take money from the workers. That's how it works. Sad but true.

You can call us fat and lazy Union workers all you want, but this Republican union suporter will tell you, your wrong about us. I put in 3000+ hours a year, doubt alot of you nay sayers work that :). Verizon would gladly pay minimum wage if they could, and with out benifits. Ask any manager, they lost their pension a couple years ago, what is the incentive for good management to stay. Verizon FIOS is awesome, and is the only saving grace for this company. In 12 years the stack price has gone nowhere, but the COE's keep getting raises, and the tech's can't get tools, because it's not in the budget. Let's be real here, the Fatcat's wanna Screw us working people. We need a good contract NOW, because in 10 years FIOS is gonna put alot of people out of work. Stand Strong CWA/IBEW

I worked for Verizon/Bell Atlantic for 23 plus years. In my eyes the workers,especially the customer service reps are nothinbg but over paid bank tellers. The sad part is for the money they are paid they do not provide quality customer service.

Yes. Verizon would pay minimum wage if they could get away with it. Would you work for minimum wage? I wouldn't.

I'm a manager at Verizon. I negotiated my starting salary and signing bonus up front. Every year Verizon gives me a bonus and increase based on my performance. Sure they'd rather give me nothing but they know I would never take that. They took away our retirement plan. That sucks. But, they added annual contributions to my 401K and now I get even more than I was getting before!

Why would they do that? Because they know that if they don't pay me what I'm worth then someone else will.

This is the USA, no the USSR. Stand up for yourself. Earn what you are really worth. Stop hiding behind a union. If big business can push you around, treat you unfairly, and pay you minimum wage then maybe you need to take a serious look at your own skills and contributions.

Unionism = Communism? No, but it's damn close.

As an investor I sincerely hope you do go on strike for a month. This will cause two things to happen. Verizon's stock price will drop. But their biggest expense, your salary, will go away completely for one month. That will cause the stock price to jump up after one month.

Please, please, go out for a month. I'll make enough to take the rest of the year off!

Thanks CWA!

FIOS will make these union guys obsolete. Bye Bye

Are you kidding me? For all you "shareholders", you want to protect your investments? Try getting some balls and vote to cut the overpaid CEO that started out as a janitor, and then kissed his way to the top. Why should anyone in the CWA lose benefits and take a paycut? Just to sit back and watch Ivan suck up the rewards of so many hard working men and women of Verizon? The pay should be double what some of these people go thru. The dedication and sweat of our Fios techs bring you the FIOS tv Christmas morning when your snot nose kids get those 50" plasmas and the high speed internet for your kids 360's, Wii's, etc. So the next time you step on the backs of the working men and women, why dont you go knock on IVAN's door Christmas morning, and I bet he is there and not in the office.

I absolutely earn what I am worth at Verizon. I love my splicing job and my union. I work my ass off every day, "going outside the nine-dots," and every supervisor I have ever had has been happy to have me. They rely on me to figure out tough technological problems and delight our customers, especially the angry ones who have gotten that way from bad management decisions. Due to the opinion that many Americans have of their unionized fellow citizens being lazy and overpaid, I go out of my way to make sure I am not just another example of the same. I don't want to provide anyone with any proof of such, but instead to have them see me and my ilk as the hard-working family men and women that we are. I came to Bell Atlantic as a service rep BECAUSE of the wages and worked my way up to splicer by getting "exceeds" ratings. Customers ask for me personally. Why would someone doing the same job somewhere else for less money demand that I should make less? Shouldn't he be demanding more? Why bring down the going wage for the industry? By offering "high" pay and benefits, Verizon has people beating the doors down to work there, which allows them to carefully choose who they hire, which results in a more professional and reliable workforce. When you get hired here, you stay for a career and care about your job and your company. If your are an under-performer your working life is made miserable, as it should be. Do I have coworkers like that? Sure, maybe 2%. The rest of us are committed to this job, company, and Union. I say again that the union is necessary. The CWA does not have the bad reputation some others unions have; I think of us as a "pocket protector" union because of all the techno-geeks that are in it. We are not thugs, but hard working people of integrity.

Verizon doesn't even believe the union is going to walk out. They put out all this hype of striking,, well, Verizon doesn't believe it. Matter of fact, management got orders NOT to fly until there is a strike. They have had tickets ready to fly out,,but that all has changed. All your threats have been in vain so far.

So tell me, seriously, why do you need a union? If you are as good as you say, and I have no doubt that you are, why do you need a union? If the company is foolish enough not to take care of you then I'm sure that you, just like I, could easily find something better. What is your reason for supporting a union?

corporate greed is ugly. these execs should be hung

protect yourself now, strike fios

So whats going to happen? Iam fully vested and cant be fired I was told.

Are they going to fire people?

Well, I know on most jobs if you don't show up for work you can be fired.

The contract expires at midnight. You do not work without a contract. I walked when i was a temp hire, and was brought back as a fully vested employee. Everyone in "the know" seems to think the company will cave before monday. Even my managers were joking around, not taking ID cards because they "wll see us monday". I for one am not so optimistic. I went out and bought more red shirts so i wont have to do laundry every 3 days.

If we go out on strike, the stock price will actually go up, as it has in every other strike, ever. So i doubt your status as an investor. This is because Wall St. is notoriously short sighted, and only looks for what makes them a buck today. When VZ announces its Fios plans, the stock actually dropped. Investors could not understand why so much money was being allocated for a product to replace one that was being sold for the last 100 years. I swear, brokers are inbred, mercury drinking retards.

Sure, they are going to fire everyone that does not show up and then management is going to run everything ,yep thats what will happen LOL

to the investor, do you realize that any money saved by the company will be used to pay for unlimited overtime for the employees when they get back to work. Been through strikes and the company is a mess when we come back. I work in the repair side and believe me nothing will get done until the work force is back. For any replacement workers that come in, who's gonna dispach them- our managers, what a joke that would be , they have no clue how to do our jobs. Believe me we do not want to strike but we will do what we have to do to protect our future. As important as FIOS is, we employees care about the copper customers even more , unfortuntly Verizon does not feel the same way about them

How dare you say that to anyone! We know how good we have it and that's why we're fighting for it! If you were in the employee's shoes...would you say OK, take away our health benefits, decrease our pay, no yearly raises, and more? You do what these men and women do everyday and then let me hear you wish bankruptcy on someone. A$$

I think it's funny that some of these morons honestly think that cable company workers could do my job. I'm a systems technician for Verizon, and I'd like to see some moron who works on one giant piece of coax, turn up an OC48 or troubleshoot a lightspan system. Let's be honest here, my job is more complicated than almost everyone I know, and I know some pretty smart people. As far as the "other" telecom workers who should replace us. You're not real phonemen. There's only one network.

Anybody who thinks that cwa can just be "replaced" has no clue to what we do. It's not just the outside techs,but everyone who handles everything. How can they train people when they have no clue to how the systems operate. FIOS is big time and if CWA strikes, heads will roll at the top for letting it happen. Much to gain on the union side and much to lose in upper management. The company already is having a hard time meeting Wall Streets numbers in regards to cost per unit in Fios. What do you think happens there if Ivan lets the union walk?

If it wasnt for the Union we would all make $13 an hour-like ex military and catv/sat installers.So long as ivan makes 60 mil a year,and "retired consultants" make 2mil a year off our blood and sweat, we Union employees have the right to make a good living and provide for our families.

So the deadline came and went and their still talking. No one wants a strike and maybe now there won't be one.

And no, believe me, you can't drop a cable company employee into a Verizon tech spot and expect them to do the job. Some management could do it but only because they've done it before.

These jobs take years of training and experience to do them well which, for me, raises the question,

Why do skilled workers need a union?

No strike, God bless us all.

the stock goes any lower it will be devalued from the nyse, you might want to invest your money in china

Wow, 1st off I empathize with the folks that quit frankly work their butts off while the Union folks who represent them come to work when they want, go to places to "visit" employees with no agenda and when they actually do come in to work, they have the poorest productivty results. How embarassing! Maybe if the Union leadership reps worked, the cost saving to Verizon would offset some finacial relief (healtcare) needless to say remove the overload of work on the rest of the employees. I see the Union as a "Business" running inside of Verizon trying to keep themselves unproductive and retiring HIGH!

I'd say the Union is a little outdated. The 50's and 60's are over. I'll give you that there are some really hard working Union folks out there but there are also a ton of slackers that hide behind the union so they can screw around and slide by. I really don't have any sympathy for the Union considering they are making such unreasonable demands. They think they are better than the average worker and that they can charge a premium because they extort companies by threatening work stoppages. Please, there are a ton of Americans waiting to back fill those positions and if you don't like what's happening at a job, quit and go work for someone else. It IS that simple.

Once again as far as I concerned the Union sold us out . Playing into the hands of the company by working under the old contract. 6-8 months of talks and no contract or even hope. Then all off a sudden they agree on a couple small issues and they call it progress. The unions days are numbered as they have no backbone anymore. We are sure to loose something out of this contract for sure.Unions are not what they used to be .

Hey union guy, Let's just face it Verizon sucks. It sucks for management too!! We low level managers are getting jerked around too! I hate to say it but the only ones to win in all this will be the union suits, and the corporate suits. Both sides have been hypeing this up for months. And the little guys are their chess pieces. The investors need to see that upper management is a joke and demand change. It's all about the benjamins. Always will be!!!!!

Pretty sad that this site removes valid posts relating to this topic. Nothing like good old censorship rearing it's ugly head. Before you accuse the post of being racists or full of 4 letter words, it wasn't. I guess if they don't like your opinion they remove the post. SAD, VERY SAD!!

Ohh and I'm sure that post will be removed as well

I've been watching some of the other blogs, boards, etc and am puzzled why so many disgruntled employees (union members) can be so vocal for thier disdain for management and the company and still continue to work at Verizon. I mean if it was that bad I would just quit. Seems simple enough.
Everyone, management and union on the landline side of the business should be very concerned about the existence of a job in 5 years, rather than the whether there is 3% or 4% raise.

The unions doen't really care about the future. It's what can we get NOW. They don't really focus farther than "what's in it for me now?" The poor guys have been brainwashed into thinking that the union is out for their best interests. The union has hundreds of millions of dollars.What percentage do they actually give back to the workers?? Unions in telcom will be neutered as technology advances. So its take all they can take no matter what the cost. Screw the retirees, screw the new hires, just GIMME GIMME GIMME.

as a retired verizon "com tech" i hope the storm of the century hits the verizon footprint while cwa, ibew is out on strike. then watch as the female low wage managers and the decrepit back stabbing retired managers try to put the network back together. there is lead cable 100 years old falling off the pole lines as the idiots keep getting rid of trained , motivated employees. the old time managers would puke at he sight of the condition of the OSP. ivan seidenberk you r a jerk.i changed to comcast so i could have dial tone all the time not 25% of the time . retired and loving it

The Union has no cojones!!!!!!!!! Why have a strike vote if you bunch of nancies aren't going to strike. You guys make me laugh. As for litespan46's comments on switching to comcast, I hope that works for you but I know at my house comcast couldn't keep steady signal levels to my house to save there life. But on a side note, I love your Verizon bashing while you ID is a piece of DSL equipment. hahahahahah Never did care much for litespan equipment but it did work.......mostly.

Yeah, and when they hire you, you will make make 7.25 per hour with no benefits.

Then find another job, it's that simple.