Verizon Reaches Deal in Principle to End Landline Worker Strike
By Scott Moritz
(Bloomberg) — Verizon Communications Inc. and its two unions reached an agreement in principle on a new labor contract, the U.S. Labor Department said, paving the way for about 39,000 landline employees to return to work after a 44-day strike.
The parties are putting the four-year deal in writing, and union members should return to work next week, said Labor Secretary Thomas Perez in a statement. Full terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.
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The walkout by the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has been one of the largest in the U.S. in recent years. Perez helped broker the deal by bringing Verizon Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam and two union executives to Washington to discuss ways to resolve the dispute.
To try and keep up with business demands during the strike, Verizon had dispatched managers and non-union workers to call centers and field-service assignments. Yet even with the temporary help, the strike has been a drag on the company’s landline business, Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said during an investor presentation earlier this month. Because of the strike, Verizon probably won’t add FiOS TV or broadband customers in the quarter, he said.
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The new labor contract 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. The company has been shedding union-heavy operations, including its FiOS business in three states last month. Landlines accounted for 29 percent of Verizon’s revenue, down from almost 50 percent in 2008. And as its strategy has shifted, the ranks of union workers have shrunk by about half from 78,000 13 years ago.
Facing years of declines in the landline unit as more people opt for only wireless service, Verizon pushed to have union workers pitch in more for health benefits and be flexible on temporary job relocations. The unions, which had been working without a contract since Aug. 1, wanted to limit those transfers of workers to other regions, protect jobs from being moved offshore and preserve pension increases.
Of the workers, about 29,000 are represented by the CWA, 10,000 by the IBEW, according Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the CWA.
Source: TheWHIR