For the past five weeks, Verizon workers organized by the Communication Workers of America (CWA) have been on strike to defend their jobs as the company threatens o outsource. They are also resisting the company’s attempts to force the workers to pay higher premiums for their health insurance coverage.
The Verizon workers voted in favor of a strike last August, when their contract expired and they failed to reach a new contract agreement with Verizon. The workers say that Verizon’s motivation to outsource their jobs is pure, corporate greed: the company is making $1.8 billion a month in profits and their arguments for increasing “competitivity” are false.
Workers have been picketing Verizon locations nationwide and are resisting the company’s attacks to force them back to work. The company cut off health care coverage for over 36,000 workers on May 1 (International Workers day) in an effort to divide and end the strike.
They are also getting help from local governments, who have sent the police in to help scabs break workers’ picket lines. The police have become an instrument of Verizon’s strike-breaking tactics. In New York City, a police officer drove a scab’s truck through a picket line, running over and injuring a worker. A similar incident has occurred in Maryland, where a Verizon attorney bulldozed a picket line in his luxury car, running over a worker.
We stand in solidarity with the Verizon workers’ strike!
Down with corporate greed!
Video and Photos: WorkersMedia for Left Voice
VERIZON STRIKE Providence, RI – May 12, 2016 – YouTube
