Today in Labor History—November 28

November 28, 1891 - The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was founded on this date. The IBEW currently represents approximately 750,000 members in utilities, construction, telecommunications, broadcasting, manufacturing, railroads and government. (From Workday Minnesota)

November 28, 1944 – 400 people in Rotterdam attacked a coal warehouse. The Nazis executed 40 Dutch men in retaliation. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 28, 1953 – A photoengravers strike shut down New York City’s newspapers for 11 days. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 28, 1994 – In the wake of years of outsourcing and downsizing, Bell-Atlantic announced another 5,600 lay-offs. In response, 1,200 employees in Pennsylvania came to work in T-shirts that portrayed themselves as road kill on the information superhighway. Management suspended them all without pay when they refused to remove the shirts. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—November 28

November 28, 1891 - The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was founded on this date. The IBEW currently represents approximately 750,000 members in utilities, construction, telecommunications, broadcasting, manufacturing, railroads and government. (From Workday Minnesota)

November 28, 1944 – 400 people in Rotterdam attacked a coal warehouse. The Nazis executed 40 Dutch men in retaliation. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 28, 1953 – A photoengravers strike shut down New York City’s newspapers for 11 days. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 28, 1994 – In the wake of years of outsourcing and downsizing, Bell-Atlantic announced another 5,600 lay-offs. In response, 1,200 employees in Pennsylvania came to work in T-shirts that portrayed themselves as road kill on the information superhighway. Management suspended them all without pay when they refused to remove the shirts. (From the Daily Bleed)

Verizon Workers Turn Away Customers and Chase Scabs

Verizon workers have been picketing at Verizon stores in the Northeast, successfully turning away customers and eating into corporate profits. However, Verizon is seeking injunctions to end this practice, according to Labor Notes. Union employees are also engaging in mobile pickets to block scab technicians from reaching their clients.

45,000 members of the Communications Workers (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) are striking the Eastern Seaboard, from Massachusetts to Virginia. Workers are resisting Verizon’s attempts to eliminate pensions, limit raises and impose large health care costs on current workers and retirees. Overall, the concessions would take away $1 billion from workers.

Verizon argues that the concessions are necessary for it to keep up with nonunion competitors. Yet the company made nearly $20 billion during the last four years.

Solidarity in Action

On Wednesday I reposted an update from Education Notes Online that teachers in New York have joined Verizon workers on the picket line. Labor Notes reports that operating Engineers, crane operators, and other construction and building-service workers in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have refused to cross picket lines, while teamsters at UPS have refused to deliver to Verizon offices, denying the company wireless and fiber-optic equipment. They have also double-parked their trucks so as to box in scabs and managers. At least 20 scabs have driven their vehicles into picketers, sending at least two to the hospital.

Ruling Class Solidarity With Verizon

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered police to follow Verizon vehicles around to “protect” them from striking workers, according to Labor Notes. This luxury is subsidized by taxpayers at a time when Bloomberg has been slashing social services and education. It is also a gratuitous gift to a company that not only paid no federal taxes in 2009-10, but actually claimed a $1.3 billion refund.

Teachers and other workers could learn a lot by reading the complete Labor Notes piece which discusses several novel tactics being used by Verizon workers, as well as the various tactics management is using to try and stop them.

Biggest U.S. Strike in 4 Years

Image by LLLEV

45,000 unionized workers at Verizon entered the fourth day of their strike today. Negotiations between Verizon and two unions representing the workers, Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, broke down, leading to the work stoppage. Verizon is trying to cut health and pension benefits for workers and make it easier to fire them, according to Democracy Now. CWA says that Verizon’s concession demands, worth $1 billion, will result in losses of $20,000 per worker. It will do away with pension accruals, eliminate job security and shift the cost of health care to employees. They also want to reduce sick days and paid holidays and shift more work out of the country.

The strike is the largest the country has seen in four years. In that same period, Verizon made $19 billion in profits, Labor Notes reported. in the last four years. The company has been so profitable that it recently announced that its wireless unit would pay a special $10 billion dividend to shareholders.

As is typical, Verizon executives claim that union members must take some hits to bring labor costs into line with non-union competitors. They also point out that their wireless employees are almost all non-union, implying that the unionized “landline” employees have an obsolete job and are expendable. In reality, the workers currently on strike are responsible for maintaining the fiber optic cables that make wireless communications possible. Nevertheless, unionized Verizon workers would be much more powerful if they had the support of their colleagues in the wireless division.

In 2000, Verizon’s “landline” employees struck for 18 days. As part of the settlement, Labor Notes reports, Verizon signed a neutrality agreement in which they promised to allow the unions to organize the wireless division—but the company immediately violated the agreement. As a result, only 50 Verizon wireless workers have a union.

While not completely replaceable, some of the work done by the striking workers can be outsourced, necessitating creative tactics. The unions are picketing Verizon wireless stores, trying to turn away customers and deny the company its most profitable source of revenue.

This is What Solidarity Looks Like

Teacher Solidarity With Verizon Workers
Yesterday afternoon Norm, from Education Notes Online, joined a bunch of GEMers and teachers from other UFT activist groups at the Verizon picket line on West St. in the shadow of the World Trade Center site.

From Education Notes Online: “the imbalance of wealth and corporate control is due to a large part to the lack of a counter force. And labor is the only real potential force out there. But labor union leaders have continually played footsie and made sure to dampen any militancy that might arise among workers. The cuts to social programs in this country will lead to London calling on our shores real soon.”