NEWARK, NJ, August 13 — Forty five thousand Verizon “wireline” workers struck their bosses last Sunday. Like the mass uprising of workers in Wisconsin, the decision by Verizon workers to go on strike is a breath of fresh air in the current climate of joblessness and economic crisis. With 25 million adults looking for full-time work, the decision to strike takes courage! We in the Progressive Labor Party salute this courage.
PLP members here have gone to the strike picket lines all this past week. We have brought fellow workers and students with us. We helped lead militant chants on the line of “Shut it down, shut it tight, the bosses can’t profit when the workers unite”; “The workers united will never be defeated” in English and Spanish, and “Make the bosses take the losses.” Many workers took CHALLENGE and a Party flyer analyzing the big picture. Workers clapped when we came back a second time with others. We had great political conversations with workers, and renewed at least one old friendship (see more next issue).
Along with many other bosses, Verizon chiefs are expanding the limits of recent attacks on the working class. Although Verizon posted $22 billion in profits over the past four years, the bosses are demanding $3,000 per year additional health care contributions per worker, the elimination of pensions for new hires, severe cuts on current pensions, givebacks on sick days, etc. As a further insult, Lowell McAdams, Verizon’s CEO, made $20,650 an hour in total compensation in 2007.
This may be a long strike. Like all U.S. capitalists, Verizon bosses are in a dogfight for the number one position against domestic and “foreign” competition. To maximize their profits, Verizon has been downsizing and firing “wireline” workers, while expanding the lower-paid, non-union wireless division. Because the vast majority of Verizon’s profits come from that division, they have viciously opposed union organizing of those workers. A strike in 2000 challenged these anti-worker policies, but the Communication Workers of America (CWA) leadership caved in on unionization demands. Since then, Verizon has vastly expanded their wireless workforce.
CWA union bosses pose this strike as a defense against Republican “attacks on the middle class.” This idea keeps workers from understanding that it is the whole working class that is being forced to pay for the economic crisis of the whole capitalist system and their imperialist wars to control oil and gas overseas.
CWA leaders support Democratic politicians, who pose as friends of the workers, but are actually squeezing us more for the war-makers than the Republicans. Even beating back some of these attacks would take a united, militant strike that shuts down the company’s wireless division and organized mass community support to surround closed worksites. CWA sellouts will oppose these kinds of tactics every step of the way.
PLP members in the Northeast must go to the picket lines with friends, food and drink, leaflets, and CHALLENGEs. We must raise resolutions of support for the strikers in unions, churches, community organizations and student clubs. The international, class-conscious, anti-racist leadership of communists could have a big political effect on the strikers.
The bosses need us, but we don’t need the bosses. They exist to steal the value we produce, which comes only from our class. Nothing operates without us. Wireline workers, who built, build and maintain the Verizon wireless network, can also shut it down. Such an action would be a school for communism.
When the wage slaves of the world come to see our collective strength, no force on earth can stop us. PLP aims to lead that great power towards the overthrow of capitalism, and the advent of a communist system where all the value we produce will be used solely to meet the needs of our class.J
Verizon Pays No Taxes, Steals $12 Billion from Workers
This year Verizon is raking in $6 billion profits and paid a $10 billion dividend to its parent company last year while PAYING NO TAXES! Now, they’re demanding $1 billion in give-backs from the workers who produced this gigantic profit.
Said Citizens for Tax Justice, “Despite earning over $32.5 billion over the last three years, Verizon not only paid nothing in corporate income taxes, it actually received nearly $1 billion...in tax benefits from the federal government during that time,” the same amount as the concessions they’re demanding.
If Verizon paid the official 35% corporate income tax rate, they would have owed $11 billion. So that amount plus the $1 billion govenment subsidy means they’ve stolen $12 billion from tax-paying workers.
Meanwhile, the company’s top five executives grabbed $257 million over the past four years. CEO Lowell McAdam gets $55,000 per day! Capitalism means stealing.