Big Labor Watch: “Open season” on Verizon
Union thugs are up to their old tricks — sabotage, deceit, intimidation, feces-hurling, you name it — as a labor dispute between the Communications Workers of America and Verizon festers.
As usual, the left-wing civility police have gone AWOL.
Last week, the company reported destroyed cable lines and theft across several states:
Verizon Communications Inc. reported a dozen cases of sabotaged cable lines and warned of delays in repairs and customer service on the second day of a strike involving about 45,000 employees.
The telecommunications company said there have been 12 acts of sabotage to telephone lines and to Internet and television services in Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York since the strike began.
Fiber-optic lines were intentionally cut in Tewksbury and several other municipalities on the East Coast, the company said.
Stolen equipment in Cedar Grove, N.J., affected service to a police department, and a heat system was tampered with at a central office in Manhattan.
“This could be a dangerous situation if people need to reach fire, police, or emergency responders and can’t use their phone,’’ said Phil Santoro, a spokesman for Verizon.
Verizon is offering a $50,000 reward “for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals that intentionally damage Verizon cables or facilities or cause or attempt to cause physical injury to any Verizon employee or contractor.’’
The CWA has declared “open season” on managers and “scabs,” Syracuse NY-based News Channel 9 reports:
The union representing Verizon employees began a new week with renewed and intense focus on Monday.
Communications Workers of America 1123 is sending picketers to Taft Road and Erie Boulevard East locations to hand out informational pamphlets to Verizon wireless customers and others.
Meanwhile, across the Northeast, the desperation is clear from a message left on a phone hotline set up for members of a union chapter in Brooklyn. The voice of a representative encourages members to deal harshly with “managers and scabs.”
“It is open season. Follow them safely, but when you get to a location, torture them, torture them with chants and noise. Be so loud that they can’t concentrate and wish they never got out of bed,” says the recorded voice.
Another part of the message states:
“They are trying to break our union. Understand brothers and sisters, we can never let these [expletive] piece of [expletive] pigs break us. So, we are stepping up our efforts.”
Add poo-flinging to the union thuggery list:
A New Jersey Superior Court issued an injunction against a local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers, which is one of the two unions currently on strike against Verizon Communications, and represents about 10,000 of the 45,000 striking employees.
The injunction prohibits a range of activities, some of which have reportedly been employed by various union picketers in efforts to obstruct or harass the company or its workers since the strike began more than a week ago.
Among the practices specifically forbidden under the court’s ruling: the throwing of feces.
…“Dropping, spreading, throwing, placing or otherwise causing nails, glass, cinder block, spikes, feces, clubs, rocks, screws, or puncture devices of any kind, or other object or debris to be thrown or strewn in, on, or about Verizon’s driveways, parking lots, entrances, exits, vehicles and adjoining roads to any of Verizon’s property or at any work site.”
The order took effect immediately after its filing on August 11th. IBEW 827 agreed to the proposal and posted a $50,000 bond for payment of incurred future damages.
The watchdogs at Labor Union Report have been keeping track — and report at BigGovernment.com on a violence-infused and sabotage-promoting internal e-mail allegedly from a CWA officer:
The company is using out of state cars/vehicles that are unmarked except for verizon door magnets. There is a possibility that other Unions may be accessing our facilities whether building or manhole. If they are you may first beat them repeatedly with a tire iron then advise them that we are on strike.
District 2-13 President Ed Mooney went to new York to meet with other Union Leaders as well as McAdams and came away convinced that this could develop into a very, very long fight. There was absolutely no positive that came from his meeting with McAdams.
…A new mobilization is to get everyone in the habit of calling repair several specific times a day. For example, some at 10am others at 11am etc. to keep a steady and disruptive volume of calls slowing the companies ability to take real ones. Have everyone dial *67 first if they are nervous about their number being tracked. A direct number to repair is xxx-xxx-xxxx in case the 800 # is busy. A direct fios number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. We can start our own time table to do this. I think the biggest part is to get EVERY member doing it at different times through out the day.
…We cannot sit back and wait. You folks are kicking serious ass!…
Verizon’s statement on labor negotiations is here. A few points:
* Verizon’s contract covered approximately 45,000 wireline employees represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
* The employees work in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.
* The Communications Workers of America (CWA) represents about 33,000 employees covered under these particular contracts.
* The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) covers about 12,000 workers.
* Another approximately 13,000 union members work for Verizon in other areas of the country; however their contracts expire at various other dates and are not involved in this negotiation.When Does the Current Union Contract Expire?
* The current contract expired at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, August 6, 2011.
What Do Current Union Technicians Earn?
* Verizon is a great place to work, and we have the numbers to prove it. Average technician compensation and benefits in some of the markets are:
Market
Average Annual Compensation with Overtime
Average Benefits Package Value*
Massachusetts & Rhode Island
$85,000
$51,000
New York City & Long Island
$91,000
$55,000
Washington, DC
$81,000
$42,000
*benefits include full health insurance coverage for employees and their families, pension, 401(k) with company match, vacation and more.
Why Is Verizon Seeking Changes to Union Health Care Benefits?
* As more consumers take advantage of changing technologies and competitor offerings, Verizon’s wireline business has declined in recent years. Although the growth in FiOS could be better, it is still a strong brand in the marketplace.
* Meanwhile, health care costs continue to rise. Verizon’s health care plans are classified as “Cadillac Plans” by the U.S. government, and cost the company $4 billion annually covering 800,000 employees, retirees and their families.
* The company took a $962 million charge in 2010 due to a reduction in tax benefits related to retiree health care.
* The unions and our employees must work with the company to find ways to address these economic realities.
* Today, more than 135,000 non-union Verizon employees make contributions to their health care premiums. Verizon is proposing that its union-represented employees contribute toward the cost of rising health care expenses.
* Even with contributions to health care coverage, Verizon’s proposal will still ensure that its employee benefits remain near the top of those offered by comparable companies.Why Is Verizon Seeking Work Rule Flexibility?
* With the decline in Verizon’s wireline business, the company must find ways to ensure superior customer service while enhancing operating efficiencies.
* To do so, the company is seeking changes to select union work rules that would allow expanded routing of calls and flexibility for call center representatives to handle certain types of calls without transferring customers to other centers. Currently, if a customer calls in with a question about a bill, the call goes to a rep who handles billing issues. While on the phone, if the customer asks the rep to check on a set-top box issue, under current rules, that customer has to be transferred to a tech-support representative – generally in another center. As part of our quest to increase flexibility, we’re seeking the ability to have the billing rep check the box and potentially resolve the issue from their workstation. It’s about simplifying the process. In the end, it eliminates a call transfer, cuts down on repair time and leads to a far better customer experience.
A few handy CWA links to refresh your memories:
Video: CWA union thug strikes young female FreedomWorks activist; Updated
Hey, hey, outta their way, CWA renting protesters for pay in NJ
And who can forget:
“Get a little bloody:” It’s the union way
Richard Trumka and Big Labor’s legacy of violence
Flashback: SEIU and the “persuasion of power;” Update: St. Louis thuggery on tape
Flashback: Caught on tape: SEIU thuggery
Flashback: The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010
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Unions must be broken. They are destroying companies across America. Companies are forced into deals they can’t deliver on. The Company that says no is out of business. The company that says yes just kicks the can of insolvency down the road. The Union will continue to demand more until they are the owner at which time the business will fail. These strongarm takeovers muct end. If Union members want to run the business, have them start their own.
Union thugs just blame the rich but the rich do not invest money for zero return. The Union thug would not do that but they expect everyone else to. It is unsustainable.
Shame on you Unions! Remember in November!
I’ve been without land-line service since last Thursday, 8/11 (we’re in NJ). My husband remarked that he saw a couple of “phone repairmen” walking down the street that day, and he thought it odd because he didn’t see a truck. He didn’t think much more about it because he wasn’t aware of the strike. Wish he had known, because maybe we could have called the cops and stopped the ba$tard$. Oh, my estimated date for repair? Friday, 8/26. Thanks a lot thugs.
Verizon is an international Corp with non union employees worldwide except in the US in collective barganing states. So if you want to work in Jersey you need to play by Jersey Rules! Without trade unions corporations will resort to prior practices of employee abuse. Research the History of Labor in the US then come back and tell me thats what you want.All a skilled tradesman has to earn living is his labor. Hence the word trade. Trade physical labor for survival. What are you trading for your survival?
I have never seen a unionized worker abused or turning out any higher quality of product or service than a non-unionized worker. I have seen jobs I would never get because I`m non-union. I`ve seen companies forced to pay unionized workers more. I`ve seen unionized workers refuse to clean up a dangerous, nasty mess because there are unionized custodians who are paid to do it, in a couple hours from now, maybe.
I`m calling BS on unions in general and your charge / claim of “abuse” in particular. I don`t believe it !
My great grandfather helped found a bricklayer’s union in Indiana. My grandfather belonged to the union. When he was young, so did my father. Even my brother spent some time in the union. I never will.
My father got a bad reputation with the union, because he knew the rules and held them to it, in spite of under-the-table deals they cut with contractors which left the members they were supposed to represent holding the bag.
After he left the union and started contracting for himself, I was nearly made fatherless at 12. We were building the Spelatec (don’t remember spelling) office building in Davenport, and we kept having our bags of mortar and insulation cut. Each night the sabotage was escalated. During the day, only one lonely union scud picketed us.
One night my father decided to spend the night sleeping in the van we had on the jobsite, with my dog, in order to catch the saboteurs. I managed to talk him into going home that night.
During the night, the saboteurs torched the van. Had he been asleep in it, he’d have burned alive. Had he been awake, lord knows what they would have done to him.
To hell with unions and all other vile, amoral socialists. I’ll never belong to one.
Why would you take that illegal alien and moslem appeaser over Bachmann?
Hiraghm,
It`s so good your Dad chose to stay home and you are smart enough to avoid union participation. Neither will I.
I`ve been reading a lot about Perry working with muslims; can`t yet find for sure if it`s just naivete or willing support of islam. Cain has some `splainin` to do too after giving in to some muslim thugs.
(emphasis mine)
Here are the two points I find most interesting in the Verizon statement. Were not both the special (punitive) treatment of “Cadillac” healthcare plans and retiree health care tax changes both changes implemented in Obamacare? Weren’t the unions – including the CWA – big proponents of Obamacare?
The Goonions insist on biting the hand that feeds them (the employer) and coddling the one that steals from them (the regressives in gov’t). I say, let ‘em reap what they have sown.
It’s also at least a little refreshing to see a company victimized by Goonion abuse put out a statement that is not entirely mealy-mouthed. Sure, it could have been written more, er, forcefully, but at least it lays out the issues in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way. It is also good to see that idiotic Goonion “work rules” are brought to light. No wonder Verizon customer service is an exercise in frustration! Goonion “work rules” insist upon it!
sonnyspats1: My work cousin my work that’s what I trade for my survival, but I don’t call making 91 grand survival. Do you?
Don’t give a DAMN about you union turds. I have NO guarantees and NO health insurance. I am paid on a 100 percent commission basis and work for every dime I earn (60 hours/week). I am the sole income earner in our household and we make ALL our payments on time. House is ten years old (we owe waaaaaaay more on it than it’s worth, thanx to GW, BO & Co). Cars: 1993 Toyota Tercel & 2003 Pontiac Vibe. Owner of small business I work for can only pay so much for health insurance: we paid 95%. Forced to give it up (we’re both diabetics). Verizon tries to sell us services they don’t even offer here in the boondocks, so I say this: A pox on ALL of you, especially you crybaby union assholes. Kiss my hardworking, no parachute scared to death ass, you pussies.
I hope they’re licking their fingers clean before shaking hands with someone after flinging that poo!
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
Nothing, I work for myself. I’m one of those nasty (two person) corporations.
I’ve never had anything to do with unions. (Military doesn’t allow unions) Saying that, my biggest beef isn’t private sector unions as much as it’s with public sector unions. Those should be outlawed and disbanded due to dubious practices of buying politicians to the detriment of the rest of the country.
“If you don’t agree with me, you’re a RINO”. Passadinner Phil
We the people should be out there ” in mass” protesting against them. Unless we make our voice heard like the Unions do, this will never end. The company needs to know the people are not with the Unions.
No candidate is perfect, but Bachmann has no executive experience, and I honestly don’t think she’d be able to beat Obama, who in my opinion would be far worse for the country than Perry.
If we can reverse course on the size of government, we can then focus on other things, like getting our leaders to speak the truth about Islam.
As for illegals, Congress is not going to pass an amnesty bill with the Tea Party having the kind of influence they do, so there’ll be nothing for him to sign even if he wanted to.
I know where you are going with this and I happen to agree with your implied theory of sabotage. It’s a shame there is never a camera to hand when things like this happen.
Prime example of what union thugs will do to get their way. Yes, I may be bigoted and prejudicial against unions but I won’t trust them farther than I can throw them.
My sister worked for Texas Instruments in Dallas back in the ’60s and was harassed relentlessly because she wouldn’t join the union. Her reasoning? She had two kids to support and would rather work than do without money to put food in her kids mouths.
Think Wal-Mart. I applaud them! I also shop there frequently along with being a Sam’s Club member. I show my support!
This is where the Union’s cluelessness is BEAUTIFUL! Union labor is only 12% of the workforce. Most Americans are sympathetic to the “plight of the working guy”, but could really care less – until the unions mess up their lives. This summer is the 30th anniversary of PATCO shutting down airports at the peak of travel season – and defying Reagan’s order to return in 48 hours. The strike was illegal and put thousands of people in a real bind.
Reagan put military and management in the towers and fired every d@mn one of em. FOR LIFE. PATCO was decertified a month later.
The public had zero sympathy for those cretin and will have none for these clowns. When you disrupt communication you cost people money, disrupt lives and put people in genuine risk. To bad there’s no Reagan in Washingtoon. YET
I agree, but have to wonder…didn’t their waiver get approved? Or were they too stupid to apply for one like the other unions did…and received?
But then, if Verizon were in control of the plan and the union could not apply…yeah, ironic.
CWA=Can’t Waiver Anyone.
IBEW=Intentionally Blew Easy Waivers.
That’s a lot of “ifs”. And they’re pretty big “ifs”.
Decades ago I decried “benefits packages”. I just don’t like the concept; to me it’s unAmerican.
You pay me what you think my work is worth, and I’ll buy my own health care and other “benefits”.
Often benefits are a way to draw in potential employees, or to compensate employees with other than money. And in the course of it the employee gets used to surrendering personal responsibility.
That friend of mine who drives for Tyson. They gave him a nice fat benefits package, including a 401K and stock options.
Right about now I think he’s wishing they’d just paid him more per mile, and let him see to his own retirement…
Speaking of unions, it looks as though the a union member shot a guy in michigan that owns a non-union electrical contracting company outside his home:
On August 16th, 2011 at 6:53 pm, T-Bone said:
This.
On August 17th, 2011 at 8:36 am, Truesoldier said:
This thuggery is quite literally Satanic.
What this country needs is spiritual revival.
This must be what the Union minders tell you to justify their existence.There are lots of laws on the books to protect workers from abuse. Firing you is not abuse. There are no guarantees you will keep a job.
Are you talking abuse like whipping or locking employees in a dark room? Or perhaps pulling their toenails off to teach them to show up on time? A corporation that truly abuses their employees will soon be out of business as they will have to pay higher wages to get people to work there if they can get anyone to.
Here is another to add to your list of someone shot by the Union strikers in
http://www.myfoxal.com/story/15273318/lambertville-vandalism-turns-life-threatening?clienttype=printable
John King was shot in the arm last week when he surprised a man trying to slash the tires on the truck at his Lambertville home.The word “scab” was also scrawled on the side.
Whirled Peas Post 116
I would, too, but too many illegal aliens packed in the store, day after day. Wal-Mart in Springfield, VA, is illegal alien heaven and Little Mexico.
The last time I was in a Wal-Mart was when I tried to get assistance and the woman working there couldn’t speak English, and when I went to the cashier to check out, the cashier spoke to me in spanish.
I left my items and walked out. . .never went back.
Hulka@127: I would have been angry at that, as well. I would have asked her why she was speaking in Spanish and I would have taken her name. Then I would have said I wanted to speak to the Store Manager. I would have asked the Store Manager for his/her name, and why the cashier was speaking in Spanish. I would have informed the Manager that I intended to file a formal complaint with Wal-Mart. If we don’t start making our position felt loud and clear, IMO we are letting the “regressives” win. There IS a time for no more Mr. Nice Guy – and this was it.