Union officials, SWAT police face off in Philippines amid ongoing Verizon labor dispute

By Doug G. Ware  

May 13, 2016

"We sent four [union] members to the Philippines to learn the truth,” the Communication Workers of America said of claims that Verizon is outsourcing far more jobs than it has claimed.

ALABANG, Philippines, May 13 (UPI) -- An ongoing labor dispute between Verizon and almost 40,000 workers nearly led to violence in the Philippines this week, where armed police and advocates for striking workers suddenly found themselves in a confrontation.

The escalation happened Thursday in the Pacific island nation, where Verizon operates call centers. The dispute, which has been going on for a month, involves two labor unions concerned about job outsourcing and low wages.

Thursday, members of the Communications Workers of America were confronted by police after visiting Verizon offices in the Philippines, where the union reps said they hoped to gauge the extent of the company's call center job outsourcing.

"Executives repeatedly have claimed that Verizon offshores few jobs, and none that affect our members. Recently, our union was contacted by call center workers in the Philippines who revealed that Verizon was lying to our members and the public about the extent of the off-shoring of good American jobs, so we sent four CWA members to the Philippines to learn the truth," CWA President Chris Shelton said in a statement.

According to the union members, and video taken of the confrontation, they were chased off by private security forces and even armed police -- who appeared to be tactical officers carrying automatic weapons -- who pursued their van through the streets of Alabang and ultimately stopped them for questioning, guns drawn.

"When our members uncovered how Verizon is padding its incredible profit margins by replacing good paying American jobs with poverty-wage jobs abroad, Verizon sent armed guards and a SWAT team after them," Shelton said.

"It was like being in a movie -- they were dressed all in black with masks and automatic rifles," union representative Tim Dubnau, one of the four union reps in the van, told Fortune Friday. "At first they were demanding that we get out. One officer even hit the door with his gun. But we didn't open up, we knew our rights."

Two videos were uploaded to YouTube Friday that captured part of the confrontation with police.

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After the escalation eased, the advocates were taken to the police station and later released, with no charges. While no one was hurt in the confrontation, it represents the divisiveness of the ongoing battle between workers and the New York-based communications company.

"Verizon is offshoring customer service calls to numerous call centers in the Philippines, where workers are paid just $1.78 an hour and forced to work overtime without compensation," the CWA stated.

In the United States, Verizon workers have been off the job from Massachusetts to Virginia since last month. Little progress has been made and no new talks are scheduled. The other union involved in the dispute is the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

"Given Verizon's enormous profitability there is no justification for the company's continuing demands to destroy good middle-class jobs and offshore work," the CWA said in April.

Of the 39,000 striking workers, about 13,000 are call center workers, union representatives said. At the center of the dispute are job security and wage concerns. They finally walked off the job April 13 after working without a new labor contract since August -- eight months.

Verizon, which has since hired replacement workers, has said it wants to improve efficiency by closing and combining call centers and routing calls to outside contractors, including some in the Philippines and Mexico.

"Our first priority is to maintain the customer base we have -- answer the phones, surveil the network, work repairs -- and we're fully staffed to do that," Verizon network president Robert Mudge said.

Last month, the company reported a sharp increase in the number of sabotage incidents involving U.S. infrastructure equipment -- which has interrupted some wireline service. Verizon reported nearly 60 incidents in seven states in recent months. Some observers believe Verizon has implied that those acts of sabotage are related to the ongoing strike.

"These are criminal activities, affecting people's safety and putting lives at risk. We are investigating all reports and pursuing all avenues to assist law enforcement in finding and convicting the perpetrators of these acts," Verizon's chief security officer, Michael Mason, said.

Verizon unions strike over outsourcing, health care

By Douglas Moser dmoser@eagletribune.com

4/14/16

Nearly 40,000 Verizon employees along the East Coast walked off the job Wednesday morning, hitting the picket line at 6 a.m. in a number of locations around the Merrimack Valley and North Shore after contract negotiations in New York failed to progress Tuesday afternoon.

Two unions representing the employees, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America, and Verizon are at an impasse over the status and future of domestic call centers and health care costs for retired employees, the company and union said.

They also clashed over a federal agency's proposal to mediate the dispute to avert a strike, with the union refusing because of potential limitations on the topics of discussion.

"We have not heard back from the company regarding any new dates, times or new discussions," said Craig Fields, the business manager for IBEW local 2321, based in North Andover. "There’s been nothing new."

The IBEW employees include about 800 on the North Shore and Merrimack Valley. Many are wire – both copper and fiber optic – splicers and other infrastructure maintenance employees, along with switch center technicians and some administrative, sales and service dispatch employees. 

Verizon officials called the strike unnecessary and blamed union leaders.

"Since last June, we’ve worked diligently to try and reach agreements that would be good for our employees, good for our customers and make the wireline business more successful now and in the future," Marc Reed, Verizon's chief administrative officer, said Wednesday. "Unfortunately, union leaders have their own agenda rooted in the past and are ignoring today’s digital realities. Calling a strike benefits no one, and brings us no closer to resolution."

The company said the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which helped the sides reach an agreement in 2012 after a bitter 13-day strike the prior year, offered to step in again.

Fields said he feared restrictions placed on the mediation would prevent them from dealing with their core issues.

"If we can’t discuss the issues at the table, the mediation won’t help," he said.

Many of the 40 or so employees walking the line at the Methuen garage on Pleasant Valley Street Wednesday morning also had participated in the 2011 strike, which ended when the unions and Verizon agreed to restart negotiations but before a contract was finished.

"It's tough not taking a paycheck," Kelly Noah, an Atkinson resident who has worked for Verizon for 26 years, said Wednesday.

Coworker Lance Thigpen, a Lawrence resident and splicer service technician with 25 years at Verizon, said the other members would help out if this year's strike drags on.

"If it goes longer than two weeks, we tend to help everyone out," he said.

Sherry Lister, a Salem, N.H., resident with 27 years at the company, said she still loved working for Verizon, but thought it was important to resist layoffs and outsourcing.

"You can't be sending jobs overseas because you want to make more money," she said. "You have to keep jobs in America."

A little more than a dozen people walked a picket line at the garage on Route 113 in Dracut Wednesday afternoon, but a union steward directed all questions to union business officials.

Another roughly dozen walked outside the switch facility on Hampshire Street in Lawrence.

Verizon over the last year trained nonunion employees – both from other parts of the company and with outside contractors – to take over in the event of a strike.

Some of the main sticking points include augmenting the role of outside contractors, including international companies, to field customer service calls, closing domestic call centers and laying off employees, imposing time limits on company pension contributions and increasing health care costs on retired employees.

Outsourcing

What is outsourcing, it is subcontracting of a work to a non-union plant where the wages are much lower. The question is why would TWU Local 100 agree to such a principle which clearly undermines its own membership and leads to a decline in membership.

It is clear our employer has made a decision toward elimination of the union, with the end result of over time unionized portion shrinks while the unorganized portions gradually expands in importance. 

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal described the Ingersoll Rand(I-R) Co. The company followed the three-pronged approach in its efforts to reduce exposure to unions.

1. It built new plants in the South where the probability of keeping them non union is greatest
2. Close or sell off parts of the company where union is established
3. Turn itself into a nonunion company to quietly encourage workers at unionized plants to decertify their unions

It is clear our employer maybe is trying to copy I-R’s strategy, before it reaches the third step maybe we as workers should copy I-R’s workers response in an effort to save their jobs. Therefore, workers at six of the company’s plants voted out their unions.  Clearly Local 100 under president Samuelsen and the current leadership are failing the membership, and maybe it is time to decertify our union.

Section 1.13 - Farming out of work - this section must be eliminated, removed stricken and deleted. Do you believe president Samuelsen and the current leadership are capable of delivering the future contract without this section?