“They have been through so much,” Layhew said of the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America members who walked out in October 2022 over health care, wages and audacious attacks on their contract. “I really felt for them.”
If environmental groups want to gain power in state houses or senates, they may want to look at what just happened in Philadelphia: Groups like 350 Philadelphia and Sunrise Movement endorsed the same candidate as the electricians’ union.
In an era of revived US strike activity, what makes the NYNEX dispute most worthy of study is the central issue involved: health care cost shifting.
As Black Lives Matter and other social justice campaigns focus more on economic inequality, unions see an opportunity
Company agrees to add 1,300 new call center jobs on the East Coast
10.9% raise over four years
First contract for wireless retail workers
Forty thousand Verizon workers have now been on strike for a month. These days, a strike of the Verizon action’s scale and duration is exceedingly rare. That’s largely because the stakes for workers are so high. Strikers don’t just lose their pay and benefits — they risk losing their job entirely.
If well organized and militant union members at Verizon—who have gone on strike against the company and its predecessors in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2011 and now—can’t stop the outsourcing and destruction of decent jobs, unorganized workers spread across the planet in industries like telecommunications will find the task insurmountable.
As Verizon employees raise their voices against corporate greed, it’s important that more of us stand up for an economy that works for everyone. If Verizon gets its way, we’re allowing corporate CEOs to rewrite the rules in their favor yet again, instead of ensuring that more of our friends and neighbors can hold the line for family-sustaining pay and benefits.
On October 17th, 2000 workers, members of the CWA and IBEW at Fairpoint Communications in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were forced on strike. The company is demanding $700 million dollars in concessions. They are still on strike.
Two thousand telecommunications workers walked off their jobs in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine on October 17 after FairPoint Communications imposed its final bargaining table proposal.
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