Verizon workers to protest in New York after strike vote
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Workers at Verizon Communications Inc plan to protest in New York City on Saturday, ahead of the August 2 expiration of a labor contract covering 65,000 employees, union officials said on Friday.
A union spokesperson said they expect several thousand members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to gather at Verizon's headquarters in downtown Manhattan.
The protest would follow votes from 91 percent of CWA's 50,000 members in favor of authorizing a strike if negotiations between the unions and the company fail for the contract, which covers workers in Verizon's wireline telecom unit that provides home and small business wired services.
Any large-scale strike would be a blow, particularly as Verizon is trying to expand its FiOS high-speed Internet and video service to compete with cable service providers and stem the loss in landline subscribers.
Verizon is set to launch its FiOS TV service in New York City starting July 28. Much of the network buildout, for which Verizon is spending $22.9 billion from 2004 through 2010, is labor intensive.
The last time workers at Verizon, which has about 103,000 workers in its telecom unit, went on strike was in 2000 when about 85,000 workers went on strike for about three weeks.
JPMorgan analyst Michael McCormack said in a note to clients that a strike authorization vote appeared to be an effort by the union to gain leverage.
"We understand negotiations are proceeding daily and believe negotiations could last well beyond the contract expiration without a strike being called," McCormack said.
Areas in dispute involve a potential increase in worker payments for healthcare coverage, a proposal that workers retiring from 2009 onward pay for their own healthcare and the elimination of retiree health care coverage for new hires, according to the
CWA.
Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis said the company had been in discussions with the unions for a number of weeks but declined to comment on the specific matters being negotiated.
"All parties are negotiating to get a contract prior to the deadline," Thonis said.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew and Ritsuko Ando; editing by Phil Berlowitz)
