Verizon and its unionized workers have still not reached a new contract agreement, despite the workers
ending their strike over the summer when management said it would bargain in good faith. Workers have
kept up the pressure, including with assists from
Occupy Wall Street, but they still have no new contract.
Now, Verizon has sent its 45,000 union workers a video explaining earnestly why they should give in to the company's demands. The Communications Workers of America, one of the unions representing Verizon workers, has posted an edited-for-time version of the video, which features executives speaking earnestly in front of rows of cubicles, as if cubicles and not big offices are their usual environs. The video details company demands such as concessions on health care and the expectation that workers learn to do multiple jobs, with sales reps handling some tech functions and tech support workers handling some sales. CWA has also made a parody video, which you can see above, that cuts to the heart of how Verizon is talking to its workers.
The posted excerpt of the original video closes with an executive saying that "We're not asking you to make any adjustments that the other 135,000 employees at Verizon haven't already made to help keep our company strong." That's a pretty direct statement that Verizon is asking for a complete cave on the part of the unions. Because that's the point of a union, right? You join together with other workers and bargain collectively so that you're stronger than you would be as individuals and don't have to just accept whatever management wants to let you have. Verizon is in effect saying, "We already made our other workers take this shitty deal so we could make huge profits and pay our top executives tens of millions of dollars per year. Now we're demanding the same of you, and it would be so much more convenient if you'd lie down and take it."