Report Highlights How Verizon Neglects Communities, Fails to Provide Good Jobs

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/10/22/report-highlights-how-verizon-neglects-communities-fails-to-provide-good-jobs/

Katrina Blomdahl, AFL-CIO Voice@Work communications specialist, highlights a new report on Verizon and its importance for working families.

A report released today by American Rights at Work reveals how telecom industry giant Verizon Communications is using a heavy arsenal of intimidation and harassment to fight against workers who are trying to form a union to improve their wages, benefits and working conditions.


Thomas Fraine, a Verizon Business technician in Massachusetts, is seeking to form a union.


The report, Broken Promises: Verizon Neglects its Commitment to Provide Good Jobs and Quality Service, by the nonprofit labor policy and advocacy group, provides first-hand accounts of management’s abusive and intimidating behavior toward Verizon Business technicians who are trying to organize through the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW).

It describes how Christopher Bloncourt, a technician at a Verizon Business facility in Monsey, N.Y., was disciplined and made an example of for posting a pro-union advertisement from The New York Times on an office mate’s cubicle.

To keep an eye on the worker, the company assigned a manager to sit directly behind his desk for months. Minute-by-minute monitoring for such a long period of time was a nerve-wracking ordeal for Bloncourt.

Says Bloncourt:

I remember sitting in the parking lot, horrified, my stomach turning….My manager is sitting right behind me. I gotta worry if I hit the wrong key stroke. It was a horrible experience.

FULL story at link.