Company Presents Proposals on Major Issues to CWA & IBEW

To: All US-based Wireline, VSO and Corporate Management & East Associates

NOTE TO SUPERVISORS OF EAST ASSOCIATES – Please post Bargaining News on local bulletin boards and provide a copy to East associates who do not have email.

This week, Verizon presented comprehensive proposals to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) for the Mid-Atlantic, New England and New York contracts that expire Aug. 6.

Specifically, the company presented proposals on major issues including benefits, sales incentives, managing the work and workforce, time-off, absence, and balancing work/life demands. With respect to health care, the company’s proposals include providing the same full slate of market-competitive medical benefits that apply to the vast majority of other Verizon employees.

The company’s proposals are in alignment with the highly competitive marketplace while balancing the interests of all Verizon stakeholders – employees, customers and investors.  These proposals are designed to continue to provide employees with a great place to work where they will receive good benefits.

The parties are negotiating new collective bargaining agreements covering about 45,000 union-represented wireline employees in Verizon’s eastern wireline service region. In all, company and union representatives are negotiating 27 different contracts that cover operations in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Beginning July 1, the parties will recess for the holiday weekend. Common Issues bargaining, which covers major topics that apply across all of the contracts, is scheduled to resume on July 18 when the CWA returns from its annual convention. There are plans to hold local bargaining talks with the IBEW between July 5 and July 17.

Verizon will keep employees informed throughout the negotiations, issuing Bargaining News bulletins as developments warrant.

Regional Bargaining Report #5 – Outrageous Proposals From Verizon

Wednesday June 29, 2011

CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today at the Rye Town Hilton in Rye, NY. CWA Districts 2, & 13 and the IBEW Locals 827 and 1944 Regional Bargaining Teams met with the Company today In Philadelphia. Your Union Bargaining teams collectively have decades of bargaining experience. In all of our experience we have never seen such an aggressive agenda as the package of proposals the Company brought to the table today. Verizon has made it clear they want to take away almost every protection we have as Union workers.

Verizon wants to:

Wages:

  • Wages – both annual and progression increases will be tied to your yearly evaluation.  If you receive a “Does Not Meet Position Requirements” you will not receive an increase
  • Eliminate Night and Saturday Differential
  • Eliminate Sunday premium pay
  • Eliminate Double Time for hours worked past 49 in a week
  • Eliminate all Overtime Caps
  • Eliminate city allowances
  • Create new job titles for the consumer and business call centers that would work on a commission based wage schedule

Pensions:

  • Eliminate pension accruals. For anyone currently on the payroll your pension will be frozen as of December 31, 2011 and after that, there will be no more pension plan
  • Eliminate the Pension Cash-Out option
  • Modify the 401(k) Plan and the CPS
  • Eliminate the Sickness Death Benefit

Benefits:

  • Eliminate the current health care, prescription, dental, and vision plans and offer plans with high deductibles and contributions
  • Eliminate accident disability benefits
  • Cut in half the sickness disability benefits
  • Reduce sick time pay to 5 days per year for those members with 20 or more years, 4 days for those with 15-20 years, 3 days for those with 7-15 years, 2 days for those with 2-7 years and 0 days for those with less than 2 years
  • Reduce Paid Holidays to (7)

Job Security:

  • Eliminate the Job Security Provisions for all employees
  • Eliminate the Movement of Work Protection
  • Eliminate the 35 mile transfer provision
  • Eliminate provisions in Force Adjustment Plan
  • Eliminate New Contracting Initiatives agreement-which would allow them to increase the level of contracting

Other:

  • Eliminate the Next Step Program
  • Eliminate the half day on Christmas Eve
  • Reduce the notice to the Union on Major technological changes from 6 months to 30 days
  • Eliminate the Dependent Care Reimbursement Fund

This is not a Company facing a financial crisis. They are extremely profitable. This is not a Company coming to its union employees seeking ways to work together to face the challenges of the future.

Their proposals seek to destroy our future.

We need to send a very clear message that this is not acceptable, that we will not be passive as they seek to gut our contract.

Districts 1, 2, and 13 as well as the IBEW in New York, New England,

New Jersey and Pennsylvania stand unified and ready to fight.

 We stand unified and ready to fight for your Wages, Benefits, and Working Conditions.

We stand unified and ready to fight for the middle class standard of living that you have earned and rightfully deserve to keep.

Now more than ever we need to mobilize!

 Mobilize! Mobilize! Mobilize!

Outrageous healthcare proposal flyer

Unity At Verizon

Reginal Bargaining Report #4

Jun 28, 2011

CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today. At the Regional table we discussed the benefit proposal which was passed last week. Some of the retrogressive proposals are:

  • The Company has proposed to terminate the major health benefit plans that CWA has negotiated over decades.
  • The company is demanding premium contributions for both the medical plan and the dental plan.
  • In the first year, the medical plan premiums for a single employee would range from $390 a year to $1,420 a year, depending on the plan they choose.
  • For a family, the medical plan premium would range from $1,380 a year to $3,810 a year, depending on the plan they choose.
  • Premiums would increase in each year after that.
  • The company wants to impose premiums for retirees as well.  For pre-Medicare retirees, a single retiree could pay somewhere between $290 and $1,320 depending on they plan they choose.  A pre-Medicare retiree with a family could pay between $1,280 and $3,710 depending on the plan they choose.
  • Medicare retirees could pay between $145 and $960 a year depending on the plan they enroll in if they are single, and between $640 and $2,155 a year depending on the plan they choose.
  • Premiums for the dental plan would be up to $185 per year for a single employee and up to $435 per year for a family, depending on the plan they choose.
  • Retirees would also have to pay for dental coverage, the same rates as active employees.
  • The most drastic changes are proposed in the medical plan.  The company proposed to eliminate the PPOs and network plans that have been in place for decades and replace them with high deductible health plans.
  • Before the plan would begin to pay any benefits, a single employee would have to pay $1,000 and a family would have to pay $3,000.
  • In other words, the company is proposing to shift thousands of dollars in health costs to our members, without offering any improvements in health care quality or any support for our members to navigate the health care system.  They are saying “You’re On Your Own”  to our members and their families who need quality, affordable health care.

Now more than ever we need to mobilize

Mobilize  – Mobilize  – Mobilize

Regional Bargaining Report #3

Friday June 24, 2011

CWA District 1 / IBEW Local 2213 Regional and Local Bargaining Teams as well as the IBEW New England Committees met with the Company today. At the Regional table the Company gave us a proposal on Health Benefits. Verizon management had made it clear in their opening remarks on Wednesday that their goal in this round of bargaining was to erode our standard of living and the many hard fought for gains we have made through our more than sixty years of contract negotiations.

The Company proposed today to replace the MEP HCPPO and the HCN plan with two inferior plans and to vastly increase deductibles, out of pocket maximums and to add employee contributions. This proposal would also add considerable cost to retirees by implementing this plan. Retirees would begin paying annual contributions as well as paying more for their benefits with higher deductibles and higher out of pocket maximums.

The committee spent the day discussing these new plans with the company and will evaluate the plans over the weekend. The Company seems intent on making the plans so expensive that no one will be able to afford to use them.

We have told the company that we are prepared to work with them to help them cut cost with the Health Benefits but we are not prepared to shift the cost of those benefits to our members. We fought too hard for these plans, these benefits and our members and their employees deserve the best health care coverage from a company that is extremely profitable.

We have recessed for the weekend and will reconvene with the Regional Bargaining Committee on Tuesday. Most of the Local committees will be reconvening on Monday.

Mobilize! – Mobilize! – Mobilize!

Reginal Bargaining Report #2

Thursday June 23, 2011

Regional and Local Bargaining Teams met with the Company today. At the Regional table the Company gave a presentation about health care which lasted all day.

We have analyzed the Company’s lengthy opening statement from yesterday’s meeting which basically followed the theme of your wages are too high, your health benefits cost too much, you use your health benefits too frequently, you are out sick too much and your work rules are too costly.

If you read the Union’s opening statement you can see that we took the high road and offered to help the Company solve problems as long as the member’s livelihoods were not harmed.
Well it appears that Verizon believes that you are their enemy instead of the dedicated hard working work force that we know you are. This company is trying to take back everything that we have fought for and worked for over half a century.

We are not ready to go backwards; we are not ready to give up our standard of living. We all must stand together and if it’s a fight they want it’s a fight they’ll get.

The Union will be asking you to mobilize, to take action. We need every member involved. This fight cannot be left to someone else. Every member must participate.

Keep checking this website for further updates and instructions.

Regional Bargaining Report #1

Wednesday June 22, 2011

CWA Districts 1, 2, and 13 as well as IBEW New York (NY), New England (NE) and New Jersey (NJ) opened negotiations with Verizon today. CWA District 1 and IBEW NY and NE are negotiating for new contracts at the Rye Town Hilton in Westchester County. CWA Districts 2, 13 as well as IBEW NJ are negotiating for new contracts in Philadelphia. Chris Shelton, Vice President District1 gave an opening statement to the Company at the regional Bargaining table in NY. Chris closed his statement by stating.

“We need to be able to grow with Verizon. The Company cannot keep claiming surplus after surplus while hiring more contractors every day. It is not fair to your employees to tell them there are too many of them but yet you need contractors to do their work. It is not even good business to do this. We know that Verizon has an ideology of union avoidance and that shrinking the Union workforce is a priority. When ideology flies in the face of good business sense sooner or later the business and the stockholders suffer.

Our members are not only loyal to the Union they are loyal to Verizon as well. They want to see Verizon succeed, they work hard every day and have for the last half century to see Verizon and its predecessors succeed. However, Verizon’s success should not be, cannot be, at their expense.

So we come here today to negotiate a contract that is fair to the Company, one that protects good Union jobs and that gives our membership the opportunity to grow along with the Company.”

The Regional Bargaining Committee also discussed logistics and a tentative schedule. Bargaining has adjourned for the day and is scheduled to resume tomorrow Thursday, June 23rd and it is expected that the Company will provide a benefit presentation to the Union. All Local Bargaining will also begin tomorrow.

Opening Statements From Verizon Bargaining

Verizon Bargaining
Opening Statement Vice President, CWA District One
June 22, 2011

The Unions are here today to start the process of negotiating a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Our Unions have negotiated contracts with Verizon, Bell Atlantic and their predecessors since before any of us started working here. During the last 50 years, we worked together to solve problems, to address one another’s needs at the bargaining table, to deliver quality service to customers and build a strong company.

And we have changed together as well. Our members have never stood in the way of technological change. Our union has always advocated efforts to insure that our members worked to stay abreast of the ever changing telecommunications industry.

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg should know better than almost anyone that it was our members who did the work to make the profits which gave this Company the ability to grow and to expand into the businesses that it now includes. I say this because Ivan has the unique perspective for a CEO that he started out as one of us.

But in recent years, this company has turned its back on its employees. This company that we built together has taken its profits and headed off in new directions, to new products and technologies, and left behind the very workers that are responsible for its success.

Since 2005 Verizon has cut 80,000 wireline jobs from its rolls through access line sales, segment spin-offs, layoffs, attrition and retirements. In the same time period, Verizon Wireless has added 23,000 jobs.

Prior to the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE in 2000, CWA and the IBEW represented 69% of Bell Atlantic employees. After the merger, 53% of the new Verizon Company was union-represented employees. Now we have dropped to only 35%.

We know that the industry is changing in a fundamental way and that the consumer side of the wireline business is in decline. While wireless subscribers continue to grow in number.

But we also know, in spite of what we hear from Mr. Seidenberg and the commercials for Verizon Wireless, that wireless service is not limitless. And without a quality wired network, there can be no reliable wireless phone service, no wireless data network, and no limitless world of communications.

We need to be able to grow with Verizon. The Company cannot keep claiming surplus after surplus while hiring more contractors every day. It is not fair to your employees to tell them there are too many of them but yet you need contractors to do their work. It is not even good business to do this. We know that Verizon has an ideology of union avoidance and that shrinking the Union workforce is a priority. When ideology flies in the face of good business sense sooner or later the business and the stockholders suffer.

Our members are not only loyal to the Union they are loyal to Verizon as well. They want to see Verizon succeed, they work hard every day and have for the last half century to see Verizon and its predecessors succeed. However, Verizon’s success should not be, cannot be, at their expense.

So we come here today to negotiate a contract that is fair to the Company, one that protects good Union jobs and that gives our membership the opportunity to grow along with the Company. Both the Company and the Union have an opportunity here to change the dynamic. An adversarial stance serves neither the members of our Union or Verizon and its shareholders. We must come to an agreement that is fair to both sides.

Company’s Opening Statement