Verizon Workers Protest Outside Customer Service Center

[Updated: 2:40 p.m.] A handful of protestors picketed outside Verizon’s Belleville company central office today as they joined forces with protestors around the region after their unions broke off talks on a new contract with the company for 45,000 employees early Sunday.

The protestors, members of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), claim the company wants the unions to give up certain negotiated benefits.

“They gave us a list of stuff two pages long they want us to give up,” said Karen Perkert of Kearny, a network technician and 22-year veteran of the company. “They’re basically just trying to get rid of the union. The want us to be non-union, like wireless [employees].”

Perkert works at the Belleville facility, which houses equipment serving more than 100,000 phone numbers in Belleville, Bloomfield and other adjoining areas. The Belleville site provides services like the dial tone for thousands of customers as well as equipment for high-volume T1 data lines.

During the contract talks the company has called for workers to make an increased contribution to their health care, cuts to benefits and the elimination of pensions for future hires — none of which has sat well with its employees.

"They're trying to take the middle class and rip us to shreds," chimed in another 18-year veteran of the company. "They're greedy pigs and we're not standing for it and that's why we're out," added Bogan. 

The picketers in Belleville today said they are being asked to agree to heavy reductions in health and pension benefits and also complained about work conditions generally.

“People get 30-day suspensions for a first offense”, even if it’s minor, said Isa Woods, a union delegate. While those disputes may be settled in arbitration, that process can take up to three years, Woods said.

“That’s three years you have to wait for your money,” Woods said.

The strikers find it particularly galling to be asked for concessions when the company has made record profits and former CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who recently stepped down, earned tens of millions during his Verizon career. 

“Enough to pay for that brand new house down in Mendham,” said Jimmy Costa of Belleville, who has worked as a field technician for five years.

The workers today believe that the attempt to wrest concessions from landline workers is part of a larger plan to phase out landland service,which a company official said has been declining in profitability for a decade. Perkert and others said the landline business is now understaffed and that service is compromised as a result.

“I knew this was coming. The last couple of contracts they settled because they wanted FiOS [the company’s television service] completed,” said a man who stopped to talk to the strikers.

The man, who asked that his name not be used, worked for Verizon for more than 40 years, retiring as a manager from the company.

The man expressed shock when the picketers told him they were not offered the option of buyouts, as Verizon had done in previous rounds of cost cutting.

In Livingston, a more boisterous group of protestors gathered on Eisenhower Parkway Monday.

One worker, who asked not to be named, said that she felt there was an overemphasis in the news media about health care being the sticking point in the negotiations and that there were many more issues at play as well.

Similarly, Renita Bogan, a 14-year company employee explained there are a multitude of issues at hand.

"It's about everything," she said. "They don't want us to have anything: benefits, pension, pay, job security, sick days, vacation.... everything that we have fought for in the past they want to take away," she said.

Another picketer, Nji Ban of Newark, a six-year Verizon employee, asked “the public to call their legislators” to help fight what Ban described as “illegal and unfair proposals” by the company.

Employees also expressed frustration about the company's contingency plan to use managers to do work on the poles. Many felt upon the dispute being settled they’d have to 'clean up the mess' left by these individuals who normally do not do this particular kind of work."

He [Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg] doesn't even care about his management team that had never been on the poles," said Bogan.

"We are confident that we have the talent and resources in place to meet the needs and demands of our customers," said Marc C. Reed, Verizon executive vice-president of human resources in a statement released on Sunday.

Bogan disagreed. "They're not trained properly," she said and noted she felt having managers on the poles was a dangerous proposition.

There wasn't much optimism among those at the rally that a deal between the company and the union would be made soon.

One worker, who did not want to be named, explained she had never seen such a wide gap between the union and the company throughout her tenure with the company. As one employee summed it up, "Verizon sucks."

This is a breaking news story. Patch will update this story as events warrant.