Verizon Workers Strike in Dedham

More than two dozen striking Verizon workers held pickets on Providence Highway and in Dedham Square Monday.

Nationwide, 45,000 workers that belong to the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers went on strike Sunday after management and unions failed to reach a new agreement.

A national union spokesperson and striking workers in Dedham told Patch that the two sides are far apart on a slew of sticking points - despite six weeks of negotiations.

"No one wants to go on strike. That means you're not working. You're not supporting your family," said Stephen Aprille, a 39-year-old splice service technician from West Roxbury.

With horns blaring, outdoor electricians stood Monday at the entrance to Verizon Wireless on Providence Highway for the second day. Roughly two dozen workers are out of work, but say demands by Verizon executives reach too far into the back pockets of workers.

"We want fair wages, fair health care just like everybody else," said Aprille. "We're very happy with what we had.

"They are making an exorbitant amount of profits. We just want to be treated fairly."

Management wants to take away paid holidays like Martin Luther King Day and Veterans Day and freeze pensions along with cuts to their health benefits package, workers said.

 John Bonamo, a company spokesperson, told Patch an email that Verizon has been spending $4 billion a year – or $400,000 an hour – on health care costs in recent years. He also said the company’s other 135,000 employees contribute to their health care costs. He would not disclose how much Verizon Wireless and other Verizon employees not covered in a union pay for health care.

"More and more people are going to wireless or getting their telecomm services from other providers," Bonamo said. "These kind of changes in our business require us and the unions to make some tough choices."

Of the striking force, the majority work on in the company's hard line division, but Verizon workers say that means they also work inside central offices where the fiber optic and wireless connections originate.

"A lot of the wireless comes through our buildings. We maintain the wireless fiber part of it," said Dan Winters, a central office technician from Easton. "We do the wireless backbone."

A Verizon spokesperson told Patch that they will use other employees and management to make up for the loss of the 45,000 striking workers, and customers won't see disruptions. However, workers in Dedham challenged that notion. 

"We're not talking guys that had a couple weeks of training from someone that they have no idea what they are talking about," said Winters, who has worked for Verizon for 15 years. "These are employees that know their job. They know the equipment. They know how to replace the poles."

"We're on the road everyday doing jobs. If we aren't today, than who is doing it?" said Paul Rufo, a 50-year-old splice service technician from Brighton. 

Winters, a picket captain, said Verizon wants to break the CAW and IBEW unions and make the wired division of Verizon non-union, like most of the wireless division.

"We're not going to be broken. We're not going to let corporate push us down," he said. "They want to create a company where they can tell us what to do, and if we don't like it, they can fire us."

In 1989, Verizon workers went on strike for 17 weeks, a strike that many still remember - and honor with buttons commemorating the strike.

"Those 17 weeks got us what we have today," Aprille said.

CWA spokesman Bob Master of New York, who is handling the matter in the Northeast, said Verizon has made $22.5 billion in the past four years. Workers in Dedham also pointed to the growth of Verizon and Verizon Wireless as signs that the company isn't struggling financially.

"We are making a hell of a profit for them, and it is because of their workers," said Kristin Muller, a 25-year employee who works in the Dedham central office on Washington Street. "They couldn't have built it without us."

Winters said, "We were the backbone that made the company what it is.

"How much more money do [executives] need?"