Verizon Regional Bargaining Report # 53

The Mid Atlantic Bargaining Committee met in Philadelphia this week to review information provided by the company regarding health care and their proposed increases to out of pocket expenses, deductibles and plan design changes. The significant cost shifting to employees would negate any proposed increases to wages, resulting in a net loss in your paycheck at the end of the week.

The Bargaining Committee met with Verizon Senior Vice President Manuel Sampedro on Tuesday March 1 to discuss the elimination of contractors in the construction environment. After attempting to justify their need for flexibility in the utilization of Outside Plant Technicians, we clearly demonstrated that this flexibility has resulted in increased use of contractors and the loss of traditional line work.

On Wednesday March 2, the Mid-Atlantic Bargaining Committee met with the District 1 and the IBEW Bargaining Committee to discuss Verizon's Call Sharing Proposal, which in its current form, would give the company the unilateral ability to route any and all calls to vendors and eliminate existing job security safeguards.

The Mid Atlantic Bargaining Committee met with Verizon Vice President Maureen Davis on Thursday March 3 to discuss Long Term Service Difficulties (LTSD), Service Emergencies and the mandatory requirement of 8 hours of overtime every week. The company recognized that there are issues that need to be addressed and indicated that the requisitions in for addition technicians may help offset the demand load and the continuous need for mandatory overtime in some areas.

The Company then presented the Union with a new comprehensive proposal which, at first glance, falls short of addressing the creation of additional jobs, the elimination of contractors, job security, health care benefits, force transfers, pensions, call sharing, wages and electronic monitoring. While there are some slight modifications in some of their retrogressive proposals, they clearly are not interested in settling this contract at the bargaining table.

The Bargaining Committee will continue to review the current proposal and respond appropriately.

The Mobilization efforts ramped up in high gear early this week and must continue daily to fight off these additional attacks by the company. Back in Black is the word of the day.

Ready to STRIKE for a fair contract???

Mobilize! Mobilize! Mobilize!