King St. Rally District 1 VP Chris Shelton. Click on photo to view the photo gallery.

The CWA King Street Rally

Last night, as the night grew closer and a cold chill came in the air, our CWA Members gathered at King Street in support of our Bargaining Team and the fired CWA Members.

The rally brought a crowd of apx. 200-300 with Members from Locals 1101, 1103, TWU, UCATS and Occupy Wall Street. It was also great to see 1101 retirees in the crowd.

CWA 1101 has two Members that remain fired after the strike. One of those Members, Rich Corrigan, works at King Street in Manhattan and the second Member, David Ramos, works at Jerome Ave. in the Bronx.

Rich Corrigan spoke and said he did absolutely nothing wrong to have been fired and that Verizon has chosen to continue the battle even though they have no proof of any wrong doing. David Ramos spoke and thanked the Members for all their financial help and their continued support.

The Rally was also attended by many friends of CWA as well as elected officials, Senator Tom Duane and NYC Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio. Both speakers said that we, the Members of CWA, can count on their ‘full support in this battle to save the middle class’.

District 1 VP Chris Shelton said “I will not sign a contract until the dismissals are brought to arbitration and both 1101 Members are made whole. Verizon is like every other large corporation in America and every other employer. They’re trying to take away our democracy, they’re trying to take away the voice of unions, because the voice for unions is the voice for working people, it’s the voice of the middle class in this country”.

A retried 1101 Member came up to me after the rally and asked, “where is everybody? I thought there would be a lot more Members at this rally. Don’t they understand that we’re in a fight for our lives? Verizon watches these rallies to see how much support we have and this isn’t what they need to see. This kind of turnout isn’t going to get us a good contract”. I later thanked him for coming to the rally and showing his support.

If we are going to win these battles with Verizon, both for a new contract and to make our Members whole, we need HUNDREDS of MEMBERS to ATTEND the RALLIES and SHOW OUR OVERWHELMING UNITY!

Remember: United We Win – Divided We Fall!