By Ryan Knutson
Verizon Communications Inc. is in negotiations with unions
covering more than 37,000 of its employees to reach a new contract
ahead of a Saturday night deadline and avert a strike.
The telecom giant is seeking cutbacks in retirement benefits,
asking employees to shoulder more health-care costs and looking for
more leeway to shrink its payroll.
The unions are seeking greater benefits in health care and
retirement, and are pushing for job-security provisions and
commitments from the company to build new fiber-optic networks in
areas lacking service.
Officials on both sides say they're still far from a deal. The
last time the contract was negotiated, in 2011, the unions called a
strike moments after the deadline expired and it lasted for two
weeks. Missing the deadline doesn't guarantee a strike, however.
The unions may agree to continue working without a contract while
negotiations carry on.
Verizon has trained more than 15,000 nonunion employees in
sales, marketing and finance to fill in for union workers in case a
strike does occur. Those employees have taken classes on everything
from working in call centers to climbing telephone poles to fixing
copper wires.
Verizon's negotiations are with its largest unions, the
Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers. They primarily represent landline phone,
television and Internet technicians and call center workers along
the East Coast from Massachusetts to Virginia. The unions don't
cover employees of Verizon's wireless unit.
Verizon's wireline business has faced cutbacks in recent years
as the company has shifted its focus away from the withering
landline business toward its much more profitable wireless
operations. About two-thirds of the company's revenue last year was
from its wireless unit. Earlier this year, Verizon agreed to sell
wireline assets in California, Texas and Florida to Frontier
Communications Corp. for $10.5 billion. Employees in those states
are unionized but their contract covers a different period and
isn't included in the current talks.
In June, the CWA alleged Verizon was letting copper landlines
break down and filed public records requests with state regulators
in hopes of gaining more insight into the extent of the problem.
Verizon's wireline spending fell 7.7% last year, but the carrier
said that is because more-advanced fiber-optic lines are cheaper to
maintain. Verizon has said the CWA's allegations are aimed at
pressuring the carrier in advance of those talks and he denied the
union's claims.
Also last month, New York City accused Verizon of failing to
meet build-out obligations for FiOS, and the unions have trumpeted
those findings as proof the carrier is scaling back in a way that
harms customers. Verizon says it has held up its end of the
deal.
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