Nearly 40,000 Verizon Strikers returned to work on June 1st with their heads held high, after a 45-day Strike in which they beat back company demands for concessions on job security and flexibility, won 1,300 additional Union jobs and achieved a first contract at seven Verizon Wireless stores.

“Walking into work the first day back chanting 'one day longer, one day stronger' was the ‘best morning I've ever had’ at Verizon,” said Pam Galpern, a Field Tech and Mobilizer with Communication Workers of America (CWAS) Local 1101. “There was such a ‘tremendous feeling of accomplishment.’  People were smiling and happy.  It was like a ‘complete (180) degree difference’ from ‘before’ the Strike.”

The CWA and International Union of Electrical Workers (IBEW) won a 10.5% wage increase over four years, increased contributions to their pensions, protections against outsourcing of call center jobs, and a reversal of the sub-contracting of some pole work.

Verizon will also eliminate the hated Quality Assurance Review (QAR) System, an effort to micromanage the workday.  Managers would bring Techs in for two- to three-hour interrogations about their daily activities and dish out 30-day unpaid suspensions.  In the months leading up to the Strike, QAR infuriated Technicians in New York City.

On top of this on-the-job harassment campaign, Verizon provoked the Strike by proposing to shut down U.S. call centers, outsource work to low-wage locations abroad, cap pension contributions at 30 years, and drastically expand its ability to send employees on assignments far from home.

This was despite the Unions’ granting $200 million in concessions on health care benefits - before the Strike.  These concessions, which include higher premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses, remain in the new contract, though the wage increases will help soften their impact.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez helped facilitate the deal, intervening in mid-May to restart negotiations between the unions and Verizon.  But the real battle was won on picket lines from Massachusetts to Virginia.  Strikers picketed daily outside Wireless stores and hounded Scabs and company executives wherever they went.   And they didn’t waver, even when the company cut off their health insurance on May 1st.

Though this Strike was the fourth or fifth for many Verizon Workers - nearly all have been with the company for over 15 years - it was the first time since 1989 that the company cut Strikers’ health insurance.  “I didn’t know if our Membership was going to be able to handle this,” said one CWAer. “In my head, I thought people might cross (the picket line).”  Instead, “I think it ‘really pissed people off’ and being that ‘our lines stood strong,’ everybody took a ‘positive attitude’ and ‘felt like we’re going to win this thing.’”

The risk going into the Strike was that the Workers might not have much leverage, given the company’s growing focus on its wireless division.  Verizon seemed willing to walk away from much of its traditional wireline business. 

But the Strike showed that Telecom Workers still wield real power.  

The company was so behind on FiOS installations that new customers were told they would have to wait until July or August for service.  That information was revealed to the Union by Call Center Employees in the Philippines, who also said they were fielding a lot of calls to disconnect service because of the Scabs’ lack of professionalism (A delegation of U.S. Verizon workers visited the Philippines in May, after call center workers there reached out to CWA through the Social Network Facebook).  “The ‘very same’ Managers that ‘ride us,’ that are ‘constantly on us’ about our productivity ‘every time we blink,’” another CWAer said. “They have ‘no clue how to do our job.’  It’s ‘comical.’”

One financial analyst predicted the Strike would cut Verizon’s profits this year by $200 million. Another reduced a wireline revenue forecast for the company by $826 million, thanks to the rapid decline in FiOS installations due to the Strike.  Before the strike began, Verizon was pulling in $1.8 billion a month in profit.  “There was ‘no reason’ for this strike, because we ‘weren’t asking for anything more,’” another CWAer said. “Why ‘do you need to take anything from us when you make this much money?’  In the end, it’s all about just ‘breaking the Union.’”

Strikers’ spirits were also buoyed by public support.

One highlight was when 150 Union Members got front row seats for a Bernie Sanders speech in New York’s Washington Square Park.

“We were greeted at that rally like ‘conquering heroes,’” a CWAer said. “The sense that I got was, ‘Thank God somebody’s doing something.’”

To Read the Rest of This Labor Perspective, Go to: www.alternet.org/labor/success-verizon-strike#.V1tNP8D-FvU.facebook