Verizon Wireline Operation Appears Solid Despite Strike, State Commissions Say

There has not been a spike in outage or utility complaints since the strike started, a spokesman with the New York Public Service Commission said. The commission is aware from media coverage of the claims of sabotage but hasn’t had anything independently reported to it, he said. The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities hasn’t been seeing an increase in consumer complaints, a spokesman said. The number of complaint calls is consistent with normal periods and focus on quality of service and repair delays, he said. The Pennsylvania commission has received allegations of service problems but it doesn’t appear that there was any increase in service complaints, a spokesman said. So far, the New Jersey commission has received typical complaints, nothing directly related to the strike.

Verizon claimed there were more than 90 acts of “sabotage” involving cable cutting, damaged terminals and cut jumpers in states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. All damaged equipment was repaired, a Verizon spokesman said. In a joint statement, CWA and IBEW said: “We fully expect that union members will respect and follow the law. Our unions do not condone violence in any form.” The vandalism temporarily affected service to thousands of customers across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, Verizon said. In most cases, crews restored service within 24 hours. The company said it has also received numerous reports of union picketers “intimidating drivers and illegally blocking garage and work center entrances”.

Meanwhile, CWA sent members of Congress an update on the strike. “Our recession is bound to continue if workers’ wages don’t rise and there will never be an economic recovery if profitable companies like Verizon can destroy the ability of workers to have a middle class standard of living,” CWA President Larry Cohen said in a letter sent to Capital Hill Tuesday.

House Finance Committee Ranking Member Barney Frank, D-Mass., “was very disappointed that a situation was created in which your unionized employees felt the need to strike,” Frank wrote in a letter Wednesday to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. “A failure [to] maintain good working conditions for employees of our major corporations is both socially unfair, and economically unwise, since deterioration in the living standards they are able to afford has a negative impact on our economy as a whole.” Frank urged Verizon to “engage immediately in legitimate collective bargain” with union employees."

Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., separately urged McAdam to reach an agreement, in a letter Tuesday. Verizon workers in Connolly’s northern Virginia district make “middle-class salaries to support their families in a community with such a high cost of living,” and Verizon’s recent relocation to Loudoun, Va., from Fairfax, Va., “with a corresponding reduction in salary, already has put a strain on their financial resources.” Other lawmakers sent letters to Verizon in late July and early August, prior to the strike, including New York Democratic Reps. Ed Towns, Jerrold Nadler, Steve Israel and Tim Bishop.