Local Verizon Employees Picket 'Corporate Greed' in Lacey

Cars honked as they drove by a Verizon facility on Route 9 in Lacey while eight employees from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 827 picketed against their corporate employer.

“This has been going on since August,” said an employee who asked to remain anonymous for fear of getting fired. “We’re working on an old contract. They want to cut everything we have—medical, pensions.”

The employees, who all live locally, were among the 5,400 Verizon workers in New Jersey to go on a after contract talks broke off.

Currently, most union-represented employees pay nothing for health insurance premiums at Verizon, the company previously said in an online statement of its position on bargaining with the unions.

"The company is proposing that its union-represented employees pay a portion of their health care premiums, much like the majority of other Verizon employees," the site said.

Under a proposed new contract, Marc C. Reed, Verizon’s executive vice-president of human resources, previously said union employees will continue to receive "competitive pay and benefit programs.”

“They said they were going to negotiate in good faith,” he said. As of Monday, 400 more employees were laid off.

A CEO just got a $16 million raise, which is almost equivalent to the total salaries of the employees laid off, he said.

The employee also complained that money does not go back to the company while the quality of service is deteriorating.

“We’re restricted from doing what we’re trained to do,” the 23-year Verizon employee said. “We can’t do a lot of the upkeep and maintenance. They say they don’t have the money.”

The Local 827 employee said it’s a “sin” that they cannot do the jobs they were hired to do.

“We’re doing this for our contract, our jobs and for the people being laid off,” he said.

The picketers also stood outside the Lacey facility on Thursday, March 22 on the National Day of Action.