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verizon workers
Verizon Accused of Deceiving Customers as Historic Strike Perseveres
Verizon's fiber-optic cable policy proves 'only profits—not customer service—motivates this company,' says union
May 03, 2016
Three weeks after roughly 40,000 Verizon workers began a historic work stoppage to protest the telecom company's "corporate greed," the union behind the strike joined public interest groups in charging Verizon with "systematically deceiving customers" as part of its push to transfer users from copper telephone wires to fiber service.
The informal complaint (pdf) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was filed Tuesday by Common Cause, Public Knowledge, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and several other groups.
It charges that the internal Verizon policy known as "Fiber Is the Only Fix" both deceives customers and constitutes "unjust and unreasonable practices" that violate federal law. It also alleges that Verizon has given retail customers as little as 15 days' notice before ending their copper service when FCC rules say they must be given at least 90 days' notice.
A press statement from CWA explained:
When a "Fiber is the Only Fix" customer calls in with trouble on their line--such as no dial tone or noise on the line--Verizon creates a "ghost" service order to transfer the customer to fiber service. The service order is called a "ghost" service order because the customer is not told about it.
Verizon then dispatches a technician on the ghost service order. The technician is instructed not to discuss the purpose of the dispatch prior to arriving at the customer's location. At that time, the technician informs the customer that Verizon no longer repairs copper lines, and the customer must upgrade to fiber. If the customer does not want to upgrade to fiber, Verizon will not allow the technician to repair the copper line and advises the customer that Verizon will disconnect the line.
A Verizon official confirmed to the New York Times that "the company writes up a 'ghost' service order to switch a customer's service before it sends a technician to investigate a problem. The company even uses a ghost icon that resembles a character in the Pac-Man video games to indicate that the company hopes to make the switch."
Tuesday's complaint is the latest salvo in the public relations campaign against Verizon, which is accused of shipping jobs overseas, strong-arming organized labor, and failing to provide high-quality service.
"By instituting this reprehensible policy to deceive customers, Verizon executives proved that only profits--not customer service--motivate this company," said CWA president Chris Shelton, referring to Fiber is the Only Fix.
"Verizon executives violated the law and are forcing our members to join in a program they strongly object to," Shelton said. "With this complaint filed today at the FCC, we are standing up for our customers, just as we are standing up for them every day on picket lines from Massachusetts to Virginia."
Last week, YouGov's Brand Index indicated that as a result of the strike, "consumer perception of the telecom giant has fallen to a three-year low," as TIME magazine reported.
The deterioration in service has become so significant that New York State's Public Service Commission has convened a formal hearing to investigate problems across that state. At the same time, Pennsylvania and New Jersey regulators have launched similar inquiries into Verizon's operations in recent weeks.
Last week, Verizon announced that the company has put its "last, best and final offer" on the table to members of the CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
Unfortunately, said CWA, the company's "last and best" was little more than the "same old bullshit."
Organizers have announced that Thursday, May 5 will be a national day of action supporting the striking workers.
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'Sea of Red' as 40,000 Verizon Workers and Allies March Against Greed in New York
Striking employees joined by elected officials—and, briefly, Bernie Sanders—as protests continued into second week
Apr 18, 2016
Verizon workers were joined by city leaders in New York on Monday for the sixth continuous day of their labor strike, with a march that stretched from the Verizon building on West 36th Street to 42nd Street.
An estimated 40,000 workers, elected officials, and other allies marched through Manhattan in "a sea of red" as they called for Verizon executives to settle contract disputes that they say hold tens of thousands of livelihoods in the balance and expressed outrage over the company's plans to outsource labor to the Philippines, Mexico, and other developing countries.
\u201cA sea of red in New York City as 40,000 Verizon workers go on strike\nhttps://t.co/l9UWP20Gmw\u201d— CNBC (@CNBC) 1460992956
Bernie Sanders made an impromptu visit to the picket line, joining them for the second time since the strike began last week and thanking the workers for standing up to the kind of "corporate greed...that is destroying the American middle class."
\u201c.@BernieSanders talking to striking Verizon workers in NYC. Says he applauds them standing up to corporate greed.\u201d— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche Alcindor) 1460994967
Among the city officials participating in the march was City Council Member Jumaane Williams, who also endorsed Sanders for president just a day earlier at a rally in Brooklyn.
"What are we fighting? Corporate greed!" the demonstrators chanted.
One Verizon employee, Jazmin Sypher, a member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), wrote in an op-ed for the Guardian:
Verizon's executives are desperate to stop the tens of thousands of other wireless workers from joining together in our union. By denying most of us collective bargaining, they've been able to worsen our job conditions, and keep our pay low, while they pump up the company's profits higher and higher.
[....] And Verizon has the money to treat us fairly. The company has made $39bn in profits over the past three years. CEO Lowell McAdam got $18m in compensation last year. That's some 300 times more than the average Verizon Wireless worker.
My co-workers and I aren't asking for $18m a year. We'd just like to take care of our families. A big part of the reason I work at Verizon is for my three kids. My oldest, Maya, is nine, and after she was born I wanted to make sure I had a stable job at a solid company. But by the time Kaleb, my youngest, was born six months ago, I saw that Verizon doesn't care much about the stability of its workers and their families.
Also present at Monday's march were NYC Public Advocate Letitia James, Manhattan Borough President Gail Brewer, and a handful of state senators and assembly members.
As organizers noted in a press release ahead of the action, Verizon's service quality has "deteriorated to the point that New York State's Public Service Commission has convened a formal hearing to investigate problems across the Empire State," with similar probes taking place in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
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This Stoppage Won't Stop: Verizon Strike Continues as Talks Fall Through
"Workers are sticking together and standing up for their families and to protect all middle class jobs against excess corporate greed."
Apr 15, 2016
Verizon workers entered day three of their massive strike against the telecommunications giant on Friday, as job negotiations reportedly continued to fall short.
As workers kept up coordinated marches, rallies, and picket lines up and down the East Coast, support for their actions kept growing and Verizon's stock dropped four percent since last week as "concerns over the strike's impact started becoming more real," InvestorPlace wrote.
From the ground, the workers said they had been waiting for more than 10 months for Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam to address their needs. Unions "are ready and eager to get back to the bargaining table if Verizon executives are ready to get serious about negotiations," they said in a statement. "Until then, Verizon workers are sticking together and standing up for their families and to protect all middle class jobs against excess corporate greed."
The strike also comes at a pivotal moment as economic inequality takes the stage in mainstream discourse. Writing at The New Republic on Friday, journalist David Dayen notes, "The Verizon case incorporates big themes in the economy--outsourcing, monopolies, automation, and inequality, to name a few."
Dayen writes:
[The strike] reflects the gradual thinning out of good-paying, middle-class U.S. jobs. And in this election year, it forces politicians to choose--not just between labor and management, but between a future of shared prosperity for workers and one in which a lot of low-paid service employees cater to the bidding of the ultra-rich.
That includes politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, both of whom joined the workers' picket line in New York ahead of their debate on Thursday. But McAdam reserved all his vitriol for Sanders alone, writing in a LinkedIn post that the Vermont senator's "uninformed views are, in a word, contemptible," a charge that was echoed by General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt.
Sanders responded by tweeting, "I don't want the support of McAdam, Immelt and their friends in the billionaire class. I welcome their contempt."
He followed that up with an explicit demand during the debate for McAdam to negotiate with Verizon workers, telling moderator Wolf Blitzer, "This gentleman makes $18 million a year in salary.... This gentleman is now negotiating to take away health care benefits of Verizon workers, outsource call center jobs to the Philippines, and trying to create a situation where workers will lose their jobs. He is not investing in the way he should in inner cities in America."
As McAdam held out, union officials refused to back down.
"Verizon workers and customers are extremely frustrated that company executives are not more serious about bargaining," said Ed Mooney, vice president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 2-13. "Today, CWA and IBEW [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers] met with Verizon to discuss the contract covering workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and West Virginia, but after 30 minutes and more demands to devastate workers' jobs, company executives left for the weekend."
"Workers already have put hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare cost savings at the table," Mooney said. "We simply cannot compromise on contract changes that would ship more work overseas and have our families separated for months at a time."
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