With political help, Verizon workers rally in Montco for better pay

Even the dog wore the union's signature red shirt, dressed appropriately for a small rally held Friday by the Communication Workers of America at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown.

The rally, attended by Montgomery County elected officials and labor leaders, came as talks continue between Verizon Corp. and its employees represented by the CWA and another union, in a standoff that partly reflects changing technology.

"Verizon had, what, a $3.1 billion profit last year - a 14 percent increase over the year before - and we still have to argue and fight about decent wages for workers? That's just wrong," State Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) said at the rally, attended by about 50 people.

Leach was one of five Democratic state legislators who spoke at the rally, along with Richard Sibley, a Verizon cable splicer, who heads the Montgomery County AFL-CIO, the county's largest labor federation.

Contracts for 37,400 Verizon employees, represented by the CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, expired Aug. 1.

The unions have taken a strike vote, but both sides expect negotiations to continue next week. Issues include pay, health benefits, and work rules. The unions last went on strike in 2011.

The labor dispute is the first since Verizon took full control of Verizon Wireless and agreed to buy AOL, two deals worth almost $135 billion that point toward a wireless-centric future. Verizon currently makes 30 percent of its revenue from landlines.

"There's been an immense change in our wireline business," Verizon spokesman Richard Young said.

In 2000, he said, Verizon had 56 million lines leading to people's homes. Now there are 19 million. "We can all name five people we know who don't have a landline anymore," he said.

Union officials say that Verizon is neglecting its landline wire business - whether it is traditional copper wire or FiOS fiber-optic wire.

"They aren't doing the proper repairs," said CWA Local 13000 president Jim Gardler, who represents 3,900 local Verizon employees.

Gardler said that Verizon's repair crews have been working 12-hour days, seven days a week, since the storms in late June.

Crews have caught up with storm damage, he said, but repair and installation orders are backed up because the company has not filled positions. The union workforce has fallen from 85,000 in 2000 to 45,000, including the 37,500 affected by the current dispute.

Gardler said 44 workers in Western Pennsylvania were laid off in June, for example. Young said they were offered jobs in Eastern Pennsylvania but declined to take them.