The CWA News | SIF: Verizon Business: Tearing Down the Wall

After a long battle for representation, Verizon Business technicians got their CWA voice in a breakthrough agreement with Verizon in 2008.

As part of the deal, Verizon agreed to extend recognition to 600 former MCI techs at Verizon Business. The workers had been battling with their new employer for nearly two years, with strong support from CWA and IBEW members who campaigned to “tear down the wall” between union and non-union parts of the company.

That campaign, part of the Verizon Strategic Industry Fund, was one of CWA’s first SIFs. It allowed CWAers to build political and public pressure to help the techs get their union. 

Verizon had built a virtual wall between its technicians by creating a separate unit, Verizon Business, for the former MCI workers. That meant that Verizon Business techs were earning a lot less for doing the same work.

In March 2007 at a public event in Boston, 60 percent of the 350 Verizon Business techs in New York and New England turned in signed cards seeking a union. The cards were counted and certified by a group of lawmakers, religious and civic leaders.

Verizon lashed out at the workers, challenging the count’s authenticity, demanding captive audience and one-on-one meetings with supervisors, threatening union supporters and engaging in illegal surveillance.

Thousands of CWA and IBEW members fought back by joining mass rallies in New York City and Boston outside Verizon corporate offices. More elected leaders stepped in, calling on Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg to honor the workers’ bargaining rights.