After their strike last summer, Verizon workers have been back on the job under an expired contract while their unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, continuing negotiating with Verizon to avert some of the many outrageous concessions on health care, job security, and more that the company is demanding. Thursday, Verizon workers and allies rallied at sites across the country in a day of solidarity.
At a New Jersey event, an IBEW local president highlighted the fact that negotiations can't go on forever, and that Verizon's failure to bargain in good faith has a probable endgame:
"At some point in time, we think the company is posturing to lay down their last best and final offer," Huber said. He said the unions — representing about 5,600 wireline workers and a similar number of back office employees who are members of the CWA — fear the company will declare impasse in talks, and would no longer comply with the terms of the previous contract.
From the beginning, Verizon's official position has been that this fight is not about middle-class jobs, because these workers can take cuts and still fit into a middle class that has been redefined downward. But the workers are fighting back against exactly that—fighting to keep, not gain, benefits and stability, fighting to prevent the middle class from being dragged further down in the race to the bottom, fighting to keep jobs in the United States.