sick days

Beginning with the evening shift on Monday, the 45,000 striking workers will return to their jobs, posts that they left on Aug. 7 in the nation’s largest strike since 2007, when workers at General Motors held a two-day strike.

Union leaders are ending the walkout, they said, because Verizon management had finally agreed to engage in serious bargaining on the contentious issues after the company had originally insisted on negotiating more than 100 proposals for concessions.

Officials from the two unions that called the strike — the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — made the announcement on Saturday.

The strike was a painful one, forcing thousands of workers and their families to live without paychecks for two weeks and hurting Verizon’s image, as many customers complained of major delays for repairs and installations. The walkout involved workers from Massachusetts to Virginia in Verizon’s traditional landline operations and in its new FiOS Internet and cable operations, but not workers at Verizon Wireless, which is largely nonunion.

Union officials said they had originally called the strike because they felt they were not being taken seriously and because Verizon was insisting on so many and such sweeping concessions. Verizon was hardly budging from its original position, the unions said, another point of contention. Verizon is pushing for, among other things, a pension freeze for current workers, fewer sick days, an end to all job security provisions, far larger employee contributions toward health coverage, and freedom to do as much outsourcing as it wants.

Larry Cohen, the communications workers’ president, said in an interview Saturday that under an agreement reached Friday, the bargaining was being restructured to focus on major issues, with top Verizon officials indicating that there would be real progress in bargaining. Mr. Cohen said another factor that helped persuade the unions to return to work was that Verizon had agreed to keep the expired contract in force until a settlement is reached.

“Everybody knew we faced a long list of management demands and that’s why there was a strike, and we would go back into bargaining when the talks could be meaningful,” Mr. Cohen said. “We don’t consider this a victory in any way. We consider it progress toward a good process at Verizon.”

In a statement issued on Saturday, Verizon said the parties had agreed on a process “for moving forward to negotiate the major issues regarding benefits, cost structure, work flexibility and job security.”

Marc C. Reed, Verizon’s executive vice president for human resources, said Verizon believed that ending the strike “is in the best interest of our customers and our employees.”

“The company hasn’t conceded any of its proposals,” Mr. Reed said in an interview. “At the end of the day we still have health care on the table. We still have proposals on job security and moving work on the table.”

Mr. Reed said the unions had ended the strike because of “the pressure of having people not working in this tough economy.” He added, “This is a situation where the purpose of the strike may not have any need.”

Mr. Cohen acknowledged that the bargaining ahead might still be lengthy. He said Verizon initially seemed so dismissive of the two unions’ position and so unwilling to budge from its original stance that union negotiators felt the company was seeking in effect to wipe out the unions’ bargaining rights.

“The unions have been working with Verizon to restructure bargaining in a way that represents progress for everyone,” he said. “We believe that Verizon management shares the goal of meaningful bargaining.”

Jim Spellane, chief spokesman for the electrical workers’ union, said the unions went on strike to get management’s attention and to show that the workers could not be pushed around.

“The workers felt very strongly that their whole standard of living was under attack, that everything we’ve worked for for decades was under threat and wasn’t being taken seriously,” Mr. Spellane said. “They felt backed into a corner and so the strike was called.”

Verizon officials have repeatedly said they needed major concessions from the landline division employees to keep that business competitive and to increase its lagging profitability. The company said its traditional landline business had declines in profits and in its customer base, even though that division was slowly rebounding thanks to growth of Verizon’s FiOS fiber-optic business.

The two unions condemned Verizon’s push for large-scale concessions, saying the demands were inappropriate because the company’s overall profitability had been strong, totaling $22 billion over the last four years.

While many C.W.A. members voiced relief that they were returning to work, others posted complaints that their union had knuckled under by ending the walkout without a settlement and with Verizon’s concession demands remaining on the table.

Throughout the strike, a big question that union leaders faced was whether Verizon had proposed scores of concessions in the hope of narrowing them down to win just two or three major ones, or whether it was intent on winning dozens of concessions and seriously weakening the two unions.

More than any other union leader in the country, Mr. Cohen has sought to promote and preserve bargaining rights, and he often said that Verizon’s truculent approach to negotiations resembled those of state governors who wanted to abolish collective bargaining.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b88c703a8d594069b6b9fa846e32fa95

Verizon officials assert that this is largely a shrewd talking point aimed at wooing public support for the workers. The company insists that the striking employees are handsomely paid and will remain solidly in the middle class even if Verizon wins on some of the disputed issues, like getting the workers to pay at least $1,200 more a year toward health coverage.

Throughout this first week of the walkout by the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the sides have contradicted each other and talked past each other as they jockey to win public backing and rally their supporters.

For instance, union officials say Verizon’s proposed health insurance changes would cost some workers $6,800 more each year, and its overall proposals would cost workers $20,000 on average each year. But Verizon’s top spokesman called the $6,800 health assertion “distorted” and the $20,000 claim “bogus.”

In the states stretching from Massachusetts to Virginia, where the unions are on strike, workers picketed on Friday at scores of company facilities, with the communications workers president, Larry Cohen, joining the picketing in Philadelphia. In addition to the health insurance changes, Verizon has called for a pension freeze, reduction of sick days and elimination of all job security provisions — a proposal workers fear will lead to far more layoffs and outsourcing, especially of call center workers.

“The package of concessions they’re seeking is so sweeping in terms of wages, benefits, pension, vacation and sick days that it would take what are good union jobs and push people into a very different economic situation,” said Pam Galpern, a Verizon field technician in New York City for 12 years. “We see this as a definite attack on the middle class, and there’s no justification for it from a company that’s so profitable.”

Verizon officials show little patience with union talk about imperiled middle-class workers, “This is a well-worn negotiating and communications ploy — it’s not a statement of fact,” said Peter Thonis, Verizon’s chief spokesman.

Verizon says its unionized workers average $70,000 a year before overtime and $91,000 with overtime. But union officials say only a small percentage of workers earn that much with overtime, an amount they say would require hundreds of hours of it.

Company officials note that the average American worker earns $23 an hour, translating to $48,000 a year for a full-time worker. “The striking workers earn considerably more than many unionized nurses and teachers,” Mr. Thonis said. “We’re at the very top of our industry in terms of compensation.”

He said the strikers were part of a rarefied group who contributed nothing toward their health insurance premiums. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, just 1 percent of American workers pay nothing toward their family coverage premiums. The unions say the workers pay 7 percent of their health coverage through copayments and deductibles.

Doug Anderson, a Verizon field technician for 15 years, said he was barely in the middle class and would fall out of it if Verizon won concessions.

“What we make is just a living wage in the New York area,” said Mr. Anderson, 53, a father of three who lives in Poughkeepsie. “On what I earn, my family can’t even afford to live where I work — Westchester County. And on what we earn, it’s hard to send a child through college.”

Warning that the strike might be a long one, Robert Master, a union spokesman, said the workers were angry because the company seemed intent on cutting compensation costs even though it had $22 billion in profits the last four years. But Verizon officials say that nearly all the striking employees work in its landline division, which faces intense competitive pressures. Its customer base and profit margins have shrunk over the last decade, they said.

Industry analysts estimate that the Verizon workers earn several dollars more an hour than workers at largely nonunion cable competitors like Cablevision and Time Warner.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f9ce934c43198beaaa50ad46a13d1135

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