Union alleges Verizon attorney hit two workers with his Porsche
The Verizon strike continued on Monday with nearly 40,000 union workers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions protesting offshoring of jobs, travel assignments and other contract issues.
Wireless and wireline workers repped by the Communication Workers of American and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers went on strike last week following 10 months of fruitless negotiations with Verizon leaders.
At 11 a.m. EST today, workers in Manhattan are planning a march from the Verizon offices between 7th and 8th avenues in Manhattan to a Verizon retail location on West 42nd Street.
Democratic Party presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who has called out Verizon as a prime example of “corporate greed” has even joined striking workers on the picket line.
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam last week took issue with some of Sanders’ claims, particularly those regarding Verizon’s tax obligations. McAdam said Sanders needs to “feel the bern of reality,” in reference to a popular Sanders campaign tagline.
Following the Verizon strike kick off last week, stock prices slid from around $52 per share to just below $51 per share, but have since come back up to about $51.3 per share.
Perhaps the strangest wrinkle in the ongoing protest is claims, largely unsubstantiated by official documentation, that a Verizon attorney ran a Porsche into two striking workers in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Verizon denies anything happened, while the CWA union released a picture of the alleged incident.
On Friday, CWA and IBEW leaders met with Verizon bargaining team representatives, but, according to the unions, “after 30 minutes and more demands to devastate workers’ jobs, company executives left for the weekend.”
