Verizon Strike: Waltham City Council Votes to Back Workers

WALTHAM, MA - Waltham city councilors will stand by the 36,000 Verizon workers currently on strike.

At a vote Monday night, the council passed a resolution declaring the city would not enter into any new contracts with Verizon and examine its current deals with the company to see if the contracts permit their termination.

"Political leaders and residents of Waltham need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the working men and women of Verizon," city councilor John McLaughlin, who spearheaded the resolution, said.

In speaking to the rest of the council, McLaughlin lambasted Verizon for trying to replace good, local workers with cheap labor while paying millions to its top executives.

According to the resolution, Verizon has made a profit of $39 billion over the past three years and paid its top five executives $230 million over a five-year period.

Waltham is not the only community backing similar resolutions; according to McLaughlin, Boston, Cambridge, Braintree, Medford, Quincy and Lynn have supported the striking workers.

See also: Verizon On Strike: Internet, Cable Outages Could Take Weeks To Repair

Close to 40,000 Verizon workers went on strike in April alleging that despite the company's success, it is attempting to "gut job security protections, contract out more work and send jobs overseas, and require technicians to work away from home for as long as two months without seeing their families."

Union leaders also allege that Verizon refuses to negotiate wage increases, job benefits or improvements to working conditions for its employees.

Verizon workers unionized in 2014 and began contract negotiations last June; their contracts expired in August of 2015.

Marc Torrence (Patch National Staff) contributed to this report.

>> Photo of Connecticut Verizon Wireless storefront courtesy Mike Mozart via Flickr/Creative Commons