Hanover: Verizon landline workers set up picket-line at companies ‘Verizon Wireless’ store

Photo by Steven Dodrill, SDodrill@959watd.com

Like their colleagues in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C – Verizon service technicians in Massachusetts say they plan to picket their company right up until a deal is reached.

Hanover’s David Duvall is an outside service technician for Verizon. He and at least fifteen other union members from the IBEW Local 2222 set up a picket line outside Verizon Wireless in Hanover on Route 53 all day Monday.  They expect to be back at it again Tuesday.

They say they will be on the picket lines every day until they get what they are looking for. They are picketing Verizon for what Duvall calls the companies “unfair labor practices.”

The contract for 45,000 employees expired at midnight Saturday without agreement on those issues including health care costs and pensions.

Duvall blames it on corporate greed and says he and his fellow union members are resisting management proposals that would freeze the workers’ pensions and have them contribute to health care premiums.

Verizon says it’s asking for contract changes because its land-line business has been declining for more than a decade.

Verizon also says there were at least 12 acts of sabotage against the company, including fiber-optic lines being cut. It says the damage affected phone, Internet and TV service in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.