When you call the Verizon customer
service line these days, a nice
automaton’s voice tells you that
because Verizon workers are on
strike, wait times are longer than
normal. Sure enough, it took me a
very long time to order FiOS service
at my new apartment, but I managed
to, astonishingly, get an installation
date for the next day.
Several hours into the installation,
one of the technicians casually
dropped that he was actually a
programmer, an IT specialist who
normally works at an office in a
different part of the country, and his
partner, who climbed the telephone
pole in my backyard, was a lawyer, a
lobbyist for Verizon. Both are in
their fifties. The company dispatches
them as substitutes for some of the
nearly 40,000 unionized Verizon
workers who have been on strike
since mid-April.
The most contentious issues for the
protesting employees include
sending call-center jobs offshore,
relocating workers away from home
for long periods of time, and
healthcare coverage. Negotiations
over contracts with the
Communications Workers of America
(CWA) and International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
(IBEW) have been going on for 10
months. As of early May, both sides
appeared to have dug in on their
positions.
During such walkouts, Verizon flies
in non-union office workers from all
across the company and the country
to do necessary repairs and
installations. Performing these
technical, and often very physical
tasks, are human resources and
public relations specialists,
marketers, accountants, lawyers – in
addition to engineers or other
employees with technical
backgrounds. For this strike, the
company trained between 15-20,000
employees, according to Verizon. It
also hired outside help.
The office workers go through a week
or two-week training at Verizon’s
facility in Virginia, where they learn
how to handle fiber optic cables,
troubleshoot equipment and, yes,
climb telephone poles.
“Are they going to be as good as our
experienced technicians that are
normally out there who have been
doing this for years? No, of course
not,” said Ray McConville, a Verizon
spokesperson. “But given the
circumstances we think that they are
doing a great job.” He underlined
that Verizon is confident in its
ability to service its clients during
the strike. It turns out, however, that
I was lucky getting a new FIOS set-up
done so quickly. McConville said the
company is focusing on repairs for
existing customers, and performing
fewer installations than usual.
“Our technicians are best in the
business. We’re looking to pay them
accordingly in these negotiations.
Hopefully the union leaders can step
up and start bargaining seriously
with us,” he said.
The CWA union says substitutes for
its workers just can’t do the job.
“Our members do very technical jobs
and somebody who has been sitting
behind a desk, being an accountant,
is just not able to do this outside,
technical work,” said Candice
Johnson, a CWA spokesperson, citing
service issues and outages in the
affected area. “Customers deserve
better,” she said.
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