Support the Verizon Strike

As of Midnight August 7th, 45,000 Verizon Telephone workers are on strike because of a lack of progress in contract negotiations. This is not a Union making unreasonable demands of a struggling employer. This is the same fight that the working class is engaged in throughout our country: a fight against the wealthy and corporate oligarchs for a fair slice of the pie.

How YOU can help the fight:

Like many other US companies, Verizon is making record profits:
- Verizon banked $6 BILLION in profits last year.
- Verizon Wireless just paid it's owners (Verizon and Vodafone) a $10 BILLION dividend.
- Verizon paid it's top 5 executives $250 MILLION over the past 4 years.
- Verizon CEO makes over 300 times more than the average Verizon worker.

Verizon has made it clear they want to take away almost every protection we have as Union workers. Verizon wants:
- Wages – both annual and progression increases will be tied to your yearly evaluation. If you receive a “does not meet position requirements” you will not receive an increase.
- Eliminate night and Saturday differential and Sunday premium pay.
- Eliminate pension accruals. For anyone currently on the payroll your pension will be frozen as of December 31, 2011 and after that, there will be no more pension plan.
- Eliminate the current health care, prescription, dental, and vision plans and offer plans with high deductibles and contributions.
- Reduce sick time
- Reduce paid Holidays
- Eliminate the job security provisions for all employees.

Corporate greed has gotten out of control in America. The rich are getting richer, and demanding we give them even more. Employees have always received more than half the total national income, until now. In 2010, the percentage of national income devoted to wages and salaries fell to 49.9%, and it slipped a little more to 49.6% in the first quarter of this year. That continued decline may help explain the economic worries of many Americans who have jobs but still fear they are falling behind.

That is what we are fighting. The working class is being asked to make do with less and less even as the ownership class banks profits and sits on BILLIONS of dollars that should be circulating in our economy. Just like the fight in Wisconsin, Verizon strategy is classic divide and conquer: in this economy, who's gonna feel sorry for the Union worker with the cushy job and free healthcare? Like Wisconsin, we MUST be supportive of the Unions, for as go the Unions, so goes the middle class.