NEW YORK – Verizon Communications, which raked in $19.5 billion in profits over the last four years and paid its top five executives $258 million during that period, is demanding drastic givebacks from its 45,000 unionized workers on the East Coast.

Verizon, despite its status as one of the most profitable American companies, is demanding the concessions across the board – in workers’ health care, benefits and pensions.

Unions are fighting the demands for concessions, pointing not just to company profits but to what they say has been unprecedented growth in the company’s Verizon Wireless subsidiary, its cell phone operation and in the company’s Internet services.

35,000 members of the Communications Workers of America yesterday voted overwhelmingly to authorize CWA leaders to call a strike as early as Aug. 7, when the current contract expires. CWA reported that 91 percent of the workers voted in favor of the strike authorization. Read the full story here.