Verizon Spokesman: Potential Work Stoppage Won't Affect Service

After nearly 1,000 union demonstrators converged Thursday night near the Verizon Center's Basking Ridge facility, a Verizon spokesman said Friday management employees are prepared to step in to maintain service if a contract cannot be reached before Saturday night's deadline.

A representative for some 5,400 technicians and other non-management Verizon jobs throughout New Jersey said about 850 to 1,000 union demonstrators had converged near the Verizon Center's Maple Avenue facility in Basking Ridge Thursday at about 5 p.m., with the clock ticking on a contract about to expire Saturday night at 11:59 p.m.

However, a Verizon spokesman on Friday said that even if union members in Verizon's wire line division call for a work stoppage starting this Sunday, other management employees—including those at the Basking Ridge Verizon facility—have been trained to step in and pick up such responsibilities as network repairs, customer service, billing and other job functions.

"Verizon is confident it can continue to maintain its network system if a job action is to occur," Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczysnki, based in Pennsylvania, said Friday at about 1:30 p.m.

Bill Huber, president and business manager for IBEW local 827, disputed the notion that training for management employees to fill in on the wire lines, particularly for FiOS, would be adequate.

"You can't train someone a few weeks to do the job, particularly FiOS," a fiber-optic network, Huber said on Friday. Other wired services also require more skilled labor as well, he added.

"It's a little more complex than traditionally hanging a wire," Huber said.

By about 8 p.m. on Thursday evening, a few dozen members of the union local 827 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) remained at a parking area off North Maple Avenue across the street from the Verizon Center. The union members wore red shirts, emblazoned with the message, "It's all about good union jobs."

Township police also were at the scene with cruisers parked along Maple Avenue.

Huber said late on Friday afternoon that the demonstrators were not planning to return after work later in the day.

Huber said the union local and Verizon management are in disagreement basically on "everything."

Those issues, including benefits and working conditions, are on the table with the pending expiration of the current three-year contract this weekend, according to Huber.

However, the union representative accused Verizon of trying to dismantle more than 50 years of progress and collective bargaining for the workers.

Meanwhile, union representatives said the workers, who perform such jobs as Verizon's equipment repairs and installations, reportedly will strike if a new contract agreement is not reached by the deadline.

A union representative said the Verizon Center in Basking Ridge employs only management employees. The demonstrators were near the highway overpass for Interstate 287 as it crosses North Maple Avenue.

Huber said that the union couldn't say if additional demonstrations will be held along Maple Avenue.

Gierczynski said the negotiations actually affect 45,000 workers in various unions in other states as well. He said contracts with some other unions in other parts of the nation are not due to expire at this time.

On Friday, Huber said IBEW locals represent workers in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and New England, while the Communications Workers of America union is negotiating on behalf of workers with similar responsibilities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, New York and the Delaware area.

Regarding the status of negotiations, he said the best he could say is, "Verizon is negotiating in good fair to reach an agreement that balances the needs of all the parties, including the company, the union and its parties," Gierczynski said.

Huber accused Verizon's recently appointed CEO Lowell McAdam of trying to break the union. He said McAdam wants the wireless side of the business, long represented by collective bargaining, to work under the same conditions as Verizon's nonunion wireless operation.

Huber insisted the wire side of the business built the wireless side of the business. He said Verizon is "profitable" and the union membership is willing to fight to prevent the turning back of about six decades of collective bargaining.

Verizon will lose market share, especially in the area of FiOs, if the trained union workers walk off the job, Huber said. "The cable companies will eat them up," he said.

Editor's note: Huber's name was incorrectly spelled as Hubert in an earlier version of this story.