Verizon Strike: NYPD Cop Hit Striker With Vehicle; Hotel Battles Rage

Photo caption: A striking union member is loaded into a New York Fire Department ambulance after being hit by a car on Monday.

By ERIC KIEFER (Patch Staff)

A New York Police Department officer hit a striking Verizon worker Monday with a replacement worker's truck, officials confirmed, and witnesses say the cop then drove away.

Multiple socialist worker news services reported that the alleged hit-and-run incident took place in front of City View Inn in Queens, NY, where strikers supporting the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Locals 1106 and 1109 were taking part in a protest targeting Verizon-hired replacement workers being quartered in the hotel.

When Patch reached out to the New York Police Department for details about the incident, a spokesperson provided the following statement:

“Officers were directed by a captain to move contractors vehicles. One officer struck a pedestrian causing minor injuries.”

The NYPD did not respond to a second request to confirm or deny any details about the incident.

Verizon and CWA Local 1106 did not respond to emails seeking comment for this article.

SocialistWorker.org described the incident this way:

“After a several-hour-long standoff, which included scabs attempting to provoke picketers by screaming obscenities at them from the safety of police protection, cops escorted the replacement workers into police vans and unmarked company trucks… Then the cops got behind the wheels of the scab trucks and NYPD vans and drove the scabs out of the hotel… One police-driven vehicle hit a striker near the hotel gates and then sped off, leaving the injured worker on the ground… It took 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive and take the victim to the hospital.”

BATTLE OF THE HOTELS

Monday’s incident was just one skirmish in an escalating war between the company, replacement workers and striking union members and their supporters, with several New York hotels as the battlegrounds.

• Catch up on the latest news and the history of the Verizon strike here

“One of the most effective tactics for striking workers has been to confront the scabs - both on the job and in their hotels,” SocialistWorker.org reported. “Not wanting to deal with the disruptions of angry picketers, more than a dozen New York City hotels have kicked out their scab guests, and a number of chains have announced they won't accept scabs at any of their hotels.”

According to the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), Verizon strikebreakers have been thrown out of three New York City hotels “as a result of direct action by striking CWA members, solidarity from the hotel workers’ union and Teamsters Local 814.”

Strikers have mounted picket lines in front of hotels including the Sheraton, Renaissance and Westin in Manhattan’s midtown, the TDU stated.

However, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has taken a stance against the union's hotel blitz tactics.

Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York instructed the CWA to halt picketing at New York hotels where out-of-state Verizon workers are staying after the NLRB filed a petition for a temporary restraining order.

In its petition to the court, the NLRB accused the union of “engaging in unlawful secondary activity targeted at hotels that provide board and lodging to Verizon employees that are working during the CWA’s strike… with the objective of having the hotels stop doing business with Verizon and evict Verizon employees staying at the hotels during the strike.”

According to the court petition, strike activities have taken place at the following locations:

• Fairfield Inn, 3rd Ave., Brooklyn, NY
• Marriott Courtyard, West 40th Street, NY
• Hampton Inn, North Avenue, Garden City, NY
• JFK Hilton Hotel, 135th Avenue, Queens, NY
• Marriott Residence Inn, Eastchester Road, Bronx, NY
• Grand Hyatt Hotel, East 42nd Street, NY

In a witness affidavit, a senior analyst with Verizon’s pricing contract management team – called in to work on an “emergency work assignment as a field technician repairing copper lines” – stated that Verizon brought him into New York City the day the strike began and lodged him at the Marriott Courtyard on West 40th Street.

The employee stated that around 7:20 a.m. on April 15, he heard a large group of union picketers making a ruckus with air horns and catcalls. After calling his supervisor, the worker was allegedly told that he should try to “wait out the protest” and try to leave when it died down.

The worker was eventually able to leave the hotel once the protesters left the scene around 9:20 a.m., he stated.

In another affidavit, a senior engineer and 23-year Verizon employee stated that when the company called for emergency workers in case of a strike last year, he volunteered.

He stated that he was assigned to 70 Central Avenue in Brooklyn on April 13 and was sent to a local Fairfield Inn with about eight other Verizon replacement workers.

On April 25, he reportedly woke to the sound of drums, trombones and air horns, and the jeers of protesting CWA members who were yelling “Scabs go home!” and “Kick them out!”

The employee claimed that he later saw picketers blocking a car from leaving the hotel parking lot, “walking very slowly in front of the car and glaring at the driver.”

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