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Union Members Take Message to Verizon Shareholders
Members of the Communications Workers of America want Verizon Communications management to sharpen its focus on the operations that are key to the company's success, and that means fair treatment for workers and retirees. Members and retirees of CWA, along with members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, will take that message to shareholders at the company's annual meeting on April 25 in Memphis.
Union members will be leafleting outside the meeting location – the Memphis Marriott East, 2625 Thousand Oaks Boulevard, beginning about 1 p.m. (CDT) The shareholder meeting begins at 2 p.m.
Inside the meeting, CWA members will make shareholders aware of Verizon's pattern of broken promises and management actions that are distracting the company from focusing on completing its merger, improving its DSL rollout and other operations that are necessary to increase shareholder value.
CWA is alerting shareholders that Verizon, by failing to live up to its contractual agreement in several key areas, is straining labor-management relations, a move that can adversely affect shareholder value. The 140,000 workers represented by CWA and the IBEW want Verizon to succeed, CWA stressed. Resolving existing contractual problems would enable workers and management to get back to the business of building Verizon's future, the union added.
Ed Creegan, representing Verizon retirees, will remind shareholders that the company has broken faith with the workers who built the foundation for Verizon's success, by refusing to raise retiree pensions. Some longtime retirees earn monthly pensions of just $300, CWA said, adding that tens of thousands of retirees haven't received a pension increase in more than a decade.
Instead of receiving regular cost-of-living increases, the purchasing power of retirees' pensions has dropped by more than 25 percent since 1991. However, the pension fund shows a $22 billion surplus which management used to inflate net income by 18 percent last year, CWA pointed out.
Union members will be leafleting outside the meeting location – the Memphis Marriott East, 2625 Thousand Oaks Boulevard, beginning about 1 p.m. (CDT) The shareholder meeting begins at 2 p.m.
Inside the meeting, CWA members will make shareholders aware of Verizon's pattern of broken promises and management actions that are distracting the company from focusing on completing its merger, improving its DSL rollout and other operations that are necessary to increase shareholder value.
CWA is alerting shareholders that Verizon, by failing to live up to its contractual agreement in several key areas, is straining labor-management relations, a move that can adversely affect shareholder value. The 140,000 workers represented by CWA and the IBEW want Verizon to succeed, CWA stressed. Resolving existing contractual problems would enable workers and management to get back to the business of building Verizon's future, the union added.
Ed Creegan, representing Verizon retirees, will remind shareholders that the company has broken faith with the workers who built the foundation for Verizon's success, by refusing to raise retiree pensions. Some longtime retirees earn monthly pensions of just $300, CWA said, adding that tens of thousands of retirees haven't received a pension increase in more than a decade.
Instead of receiving regular cost-of-living increases, the purchasing power of retirees' pensions has dropped by more than 25 percent since 1991. However, the pension fund shows a $22 billion surplus which management used to inflate net income by 18 percent last year, CWA pointed out.
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