After 15 days on strike, 45,000 workers from United States’ telecommunications company Verizon marched in to work on August 23 after getting agreement from their stubborn employer to bargain.
The communication and electrical workers will be working under their old contracts while talks continue. They agreed not to strike again for 30 days.
During the strike, which stretched from Virginia to Massachusetts, Verizon was unable to provide timely installation and repairs, and reports of outages plagued the company.
As well as pickets at hundreds of workplaces, unions and community groups picketed more than 1000 Verizon Wireless stores, said Communication Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers leaders.
Most strikers were relieved to return to their jobs, but many calculated that going back without a new contract would take the pressure off their bosses.
“We all felt the power we had while being on strike,” said Erin Small, a shop steward in New York’s CWA Local 1101. “I am afraid of losing the energy we had.”
Even members who were happy to go back to work worried about the long-term impact.
“People I’ve spoken to were not pleased we were going back under the old contract,” said Anita Matthews, a central office technician and shop steward in New York. “We should have stayed out ‘til we got a contract and we would have gotten what we wanted.”
Chris Shelton, Vice-President of CWA District 1, said: “If they don’t keep their word, we have the option to go out again, only it’ll be a lot worse because it will mean we’re out on strike until we get a contract.” District 1 includes 327 CWA locals in the Northeast.
CWA President Larry Cohen called the strike unique because “we struck for real bargaining rights, for the company to bargain seriously”.
He compared the strike to public workers fighting for their rights in Wisconsin and said the plan had been to “go back into bargaining when the talks could be meaningful”.
The company has agreed to take certain concessions off the table, CWA officials said.
“That’s not a victory, per se,” Cohen told a members’ conference call on Sunday after the agreement was signed.
Besides agreeing not to strike again for 30 days, CWA agreed to lift a cap on overtime limits for seven days.
In reaction, Rebuild 1101, a reform caucus in CWA Local 1101, wrote: “Our strike, management incompetence, and the weather caused a huge backlog for Verizon.
“We shouldn’t be helping to bail them out while we’re still without a contract.”
Union workers are down to 30% of Verizon’s workforce. The company has crushed organising drives on its growing wireless side, even closing three facilities to quash organsing efforts.
Laura Randall, a landline shop steward in New York, said her co-workers are very aware that Verizon wants to get rid of them: “They don’t want union employees doing the work.”
[Abridged from www.labornotes.org . Jane Slaughter contributed to this piece.]