We are “fighting against greed.”

At this morning’s Unity at Verizon conference call, IBEW Local 827 President Bill Huber said that company’s plan is to “break the union.”   He said we have to fight the attacks on middle class jobs and that if we stick together, “We can and will prevail.”

Myles Calvey IBEW Local 2222 president reminded listeners to remind the public that Verizon is not a municipality trying to make ends meet with a diminished tax base thanks to Wall Street greed.  Verizon is a profitable company that got a $1.2 billion dollar tax rebate.  He said we better fight for a good contract because “you will not be working here if you don’t.”

CWA International President Larry Cohen said that we need to get our friends and neighbors into the fight.  Help them to see that this is a fight that every working or middle class person needs to support.  We are “fighting against greed.”

Black, Latin, Asian, White all us workers must unite!

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Here’s a Wall Street Journal piece about the strike.

Here’s a Wall Street Journal piece about the strike.

Verizon’s Wireline Unions Call for Strike as Deadline Passes

By GREG BENSINGER

Unions for Verizon Communications Inc. called on 45,000 workers to walk off the job early this morning after negotiators failed to reach an agreement on a new contract by a midnight deadline, marking the first strike at the telecommunications giant in 11 years.

Employees for Verizon’s wireline business represented by the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will forgo pay while negotiators continue talks.

Earlier in the n

ight, IBEW official Edwin D. Hill said Verizon hadn’t budged much from its July 1 proposal and questioned whether “the company is serious about bargaining.”

Marc C. Reed, Verizon’s executive vice president of human resources, called the move “regrettable” in a statement.

“The unions were looking for us to take a number of things off the table” including changes to health care benefits, said Peter Thonis, a Verizon spokesman.

He said Verizon expected no changes to network quality during the strike, though customers may have longer than average wait times for service calls or installations. He declined to say how much a strike may cost Verizon but noted that both sides will continue talking.

Verizon had been seeking concessions from its unionized workers to help offset declining revenue in its division encompassing the traditional phone business and its FiOS Internet and television.

It marks the first strike at Verizon since about 86,000 workers took to the picket lines in 2000 for 18 days before agreeing to a tentative contract. In 2008 and 2003, the last times a labor contract was up for renegotiation, talks extended eight and 33 days, respectively, beyond their deadline, but there were no strikes.

Verizon has been training nonunion managers to handle customer service calls and network repairs and maintenance. The company will ask certain managers to work 12-hour days for 6 days a week to help meet network and customer demands during the strike, said Rich Young, another Verizon spokesman.

To address declining wireline revenue, Verizon had sought to tie pay increases more closely to job performance, make it easier to fire employees for cause and require workers to pay a health-plan premium.

Labor leaders, meanwhile, contend that the proposed cuts are meant to lessen the unions’ power, and they point out that the company remains profitable. Verizon reported $3 billion in profits in the first six months.

The company’s push for concessions follows rollbacks of union benefits in the airline, auto and municipal work forces.

Verizon’s wireline unit reported a 1.2% drop in revenue to $20.4 billion in this year’s first six months, while revenue at its wireless business, co-owned by Vodafone Group PLC, increased 10% for the same period.

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The Strike is On!

Just got the word that the strike is on.  Kick the bosses in the ass. Power to the working class!!!!!!

Remember the great Flint sitdown stike. It's our turn to make history!

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Verizon Bosses You can’t Hide; The working Class is on Our Side

Big shot CEO of Verizon, Lowell McAdam, sent the police and lackeys from Verizon security out to meet protesters from IBEW Local 827 when they dropped by to see him on Saturday morning.  The Mendham cops, who are obviously trained well by the millionaires who inhabit the town, would only let union members drive by McAdam’s house — no picketing, no rally.  Mendham is a town full of CEO’s, banksters and various other species of blueblood scum — most of whom never did a days work in their life.  (To the few working class people who might live there I apologize.  You have our deepest sympathy.)

VZ security lackey trying to look hard

The cops even tried to stop people from parking on the street in front of the effete exec’s joint to take a picture.  They don’t believe in the Constitution in Mendham, unless of course you are a millionaire, and let’s face it we all know there are two sets of rules in USA: one set for rich and their lackeys and another for the rest of us.

But what the Masters of the Universe can’t seem to fathom — even with their superior genes and “intellect” — is that they are nothing without us.  We, Verizon workers and all our brothers and sisters around the world, produce all the wealth.  The bosses are parasites – nothing more than blood sucking capitalist vampires.

Lowell McAdam after midnight

Sure they’re defended by the laws, the courts, the army and various forms of private security, but we have a secret weapon: unity!

Unity is how we win.  Our unity will be the stake through the heart of the blood sucking Verizon bosses and the rest of the vampire capitalist night creatures who hide in the shadows like the cowards that they are.

WE are strong. WE are union. WE are the working class. WE are the many, and they are the few, and WE will win.

Union power

The workers united will never be defeated.  You can write that on the wall!

Follow Workingfertheman.com on Twitter @workingfer

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If Verizon wants to save Money on Health Care They Should Support Medicare for All

Most of the propaganda spewing from the various Verizon corporate mouth pieces about the contract dispute centers around the cost of health care.  Well if Verizon really cared about the cost of health care it would support a single payer or Medicare for all system like most civilized countries have.  Unions for Single Payer Health Care and Health Care for All have been fighting for real health care reform not the bullshit we got from Obama and the rest of the Demopublicans.  Check out my post Health Care Reform, it’s a No Brainer for more on this.

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Verizon Workers are Ready to Rumble

The Verizon bosses are getting scared.  Union workers, on the other hand,  are getting ready to rumble. With only a few days left before the contract with IBEW and CWA union members expires, Verizon brought out the heavy artillery (at least by wealthy suburban standards) to “protect” its posh corporate headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ. Local cops, county sheriffs and police dogs were parked in front of the building’s exit during a union rally on Thursday August 4.

5-0 Suburban Style

Although the 500 union members at the rally were really pissed at the extremely profitable company’s retrogressive contract offers, no one tried to bum rush the building and take new CEO Lowell McAdams hostage.  They were probably worried the stench from the effete exec would do permanent damage to their nasal passages and lungs.

Ippolito speaks to Crowd

In a brief speech at the rally, IBEW Local 827 Treasurer Ippolito said that the company had finally begun to talk at the bargaining table – just a few whispers, a settlement is still far off.  Perhaps the bosses have seen the unity and strength of the workers, and they ain’t so sure they have the stomach for a fight.  This is just a little break in the dark clouds, nothing to get excited over.  But the union is ready to kick some ass.  So either give us a fair contract or we’ll have to get medieval on you Lowell and company.

Lowell McAdam -- a real stinker!

NO Way to the Verizon Way

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We need Jobs not Austerity

We need jobs with a living wage and the 6 hour work day not austerity.  Here’s a good piece that points out why.

With all the focus on the drama surrounding the debt ceiling, and the much-too-late focus on the economic pain the final deal’s austerity agenda will inflict, items that really matter—jobs, jobs, and jobs–have been all but ignored.

But a new report by the National Employment Law Project looking at the jobs created since the recession officially ended brings the focus sharply back to jobs, and its findings are frightening: 73 percent of the jobs created since the supposed economic recovery began have been in low-wage fields, where workers make between $7.51 (the national minimum wage) and $13.52 an hour ($15,621 to $28,122 a year for full-time).

In contrast, 60 percent of the layoffs from the Great Recession were in what the report calls midwage occupations, those that make between $28,142 and $42,973 per year.    Read the rest here

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Who will Benefit and be Hurt by the Budget /Debt Deal

Good story from The Nation about who will benefit and be hurt by the budget /debt deal.  Guess what?  Workers and the poor are getting screwed, and the Masters of the Universe will get off scot-free.

Congress (might) pass a debt deal [1] this week that would raise the debt ceiling into 2013 and reduce government spending by $2.5 trillion. After all the debate over who would be affected—or not—what does the final policy scoreboard say?

In short, it’s a rout of the lower and middle classes by the wealthiest Americans. Since the deal relies entirely on spending cuts with no revenues—don’t believe the White House spin [2] that revenues are possible, because that would require Republicans to suddenly desire them—the wealthy escape any sacrifice since very few of them rely on the government services that will be cut.  Read the rest

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Union jobs with Living Wage for All

Verizon workers in the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) and CWA (Communication Workers of America) rallied for good union jobs on Saturday July 30. They demand that the profitable and highly subsidized telcom company stop trying to take workers’ conditions back to the 19th century.

Workers rally for good union jobs

More than 12,000 strong took to the streets in the roasting midday sun – in the belly of the beast outside the Verizon central office on 140 West Street in the NYC’s financial district — to build momentum and mobilize for a possible strike on August 7.

Despite Verizon’s enormous profits, they are seeking draconian changes in the unions’ current contracts, changes that would destroy everything the working class has fought for and won over the last 75 years. The CWA Website sums the situation up well.

Despite being one of the most profitable companies in the U.S., (Verizon earned $19.5 billion in profits over the last four years and paid its top five executives over $258 million in the same time frame), Verizon is demanding major concessions across the board in workers’ health care, benefits, pensions and more. Instead of creating and keeping good jobs in local communities, Verizon has been contracting out work out of the region and offshoring jobs to Mexico, the Philippines and other countries. Verizon also got a $1.3 billion federal tax rebate from the government despite its huge profits.

As union rallies go, it was your standard stuff, lots of speeches from union leaders — some inspiring, others less so.   The crowd of rank-and-file stalwarts were riled up and ready to open up a big ol’ can of whoop ass on the Verizon bosses. Company bosses and the other sociopaths who run most corporations and investment banks in the world need to have their asses kicked and only the working class can do it.  Any volunteers?

I bet he'll volunteer

In his closing speech, CWA District 1 VP Chris Shelton got down to some nitty gritty when he called for a broad movement of workers who were ready to fight the bosses, not just around narrow union contract issues – although these are important – but also over the relentless attacks that have steamrolled workers over the last 30 years in the US: health care costs, the housing bubble, the price of college education, offshoring and most of all unemployment and underemployment – particularly in Black and Latin communities.  These of course are just a few.

Can we win? “You betcha,” but we’ll need to fight as brave and bold as the Red Army at Stalingrad.

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Don’t dance or you’ll end up in Jail

Thank god we still live in America — land of the free and home of the brave.   If we lived in China we might get arrested for dancing. Check out this video.    Dancing with Mr. J

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