Verizon Calls in SWAT Team to Keep Exploited Overseas Workers Under Wraps

The ongoing strike by the Communications Workers of America against big company Verizon has exposed some interesting details.

Seems the Union has somehow found out that the big "V" has been not so forthcoming about overseas labor.

This has to do with some outsourcing to the Philippines.

And It looks like "V" called in the "troops" as in SWAT teams.

Wild.

Verizon Calls in SWAT Team to Keep Exploited Overseas Workers Under Wraps

Representatives from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union whose members are currently engaged in a weeks-long strike against Verizon for its "corporate greed," say they discovered this week that the communications behemoth has publicly lied about the extent of its offshoring of jobs.

"When our members uncovered how Verizon is padding its incredible profit margins by replacing good paying American jobs with poverty-wage jobs abroad, Verizon sent armed guards and a SWAT team after them."
—CWA President Chris Shelton

The union representatives, including CWA staff, a representative of UNI (global labor federation) and representatives of KMU (a Filipino union), traveled to the Philippines for four days this week to investigate a report from local Verizon employees who sent word that the corporation was lying to its American workers about the size of its offshore operations in the country.

a reply to: xuenchen
I don't know Man...blacklistednews.com..Is that a legit source?

originally posted by: greydaze
a reply to: xuenchen
I don't know Man...blacklistednews.com..Is that a legit source?

I don't know.

But some other links are in the story.

like this one

a reply to: xuenchen

Here is another linky. fortune.com...

It is interesting. Wonder who a guy can go to once the old contract is up. Greedy BASTUR#S!!

I am a little confused on this one.

When confronted about these issues at their corporate headquarters in the Philippines on Wednesday, May 11, Verizon officials refused to speak to the representatives. Presumably, it is difficult to justify paying workers $1.78 an hour when the company’s CEO made $18 million last year, and the company has piled up $1.5 billion a month in profits for the past 15 months. When the CWA delegation left peacefully, Verizon had their armed private security team pull over the departing van on a public street. The Verizon security team then called in a SWAT team, who surrounded the car, bearing automatic weapons. One police officer with his face covered in a balaclava pounded on the van window with his automatic rifle, demanding that the labor representatives leave the vehicle.

The union representatives, including CWA staff, a representative of UNI (global labor federation) and representatives of KMU (a Filipino union), were allowed to leave without further issue, as they had done nothing illegal and the police had no cause to detain them.
CWA link

They went to Verison head quarters in the Phillipines, caused a distrurbance, go security called on them, who then called police, who did not arrive till the disturbing party left the building so the police located them and pulled them over? No one was detained?

I think the Phillipine police are a little more militarized than what those people expected to see.

Secretly sending jobs overseas for profit = not cool.

Getting pulled over in the phillipines by men with automatic guns when you cause a disturbance = pretty normal.

Can you hear me now? LOL

Cause this is the first I've heard of this.

Holy Moley ... over 40K workers on strike and not a peep.

Verizon pulled out of Maine (USA) some years back because the profits were too low- sold off the whole infrastructure to a local company named FairPoint.

Within three years, they were bankrupt. Only reason they're around is antiquated 911 related laws require them to provide service, so my good old tax dollars kept their corporation afloat.
Verizon knew it was coming, so they screwed the pooch.

Once they went through enough paperwork to keep being a company even though they completely ran out of money (why is this even possible?) they cut wages for all the linesmen.

As you can imagine, that didn't go over well. Within 24 hours, almost their entire road crew was on strike. This was back in 2014, and it was said to be the longest ongoing strike in the country- but I suspect there are stipulations to that claim.

It was a much smaller strike than this verizon one- but I work very close to the industry and if not for the workers that I know standing on street corners with signs, I never would have heard a peep.

There was virtually no coverage of it happening, even though it was noticeably impacting most businesses state wide.

a reply to: xuenchen
Shape of things to come.

a reply to: Snarl

You haven't seen the picket lines outside the local Verizon stores?

a reply to: xuenchen

Things are really bad when a private company can call in a swat team which is supposed to be controlled by the state through the police. Could you and I call them out? So how can private busienss have the power to call them out. This imply makes the TRG a tax paper funded private enforcement arm of business.

My contract is expiring in the next couple months....time to look elsewhere.

Seems people don't realize this strike is in their "wireline" division, the part that provides residential and business land-line, Fios and Internet access services. It has almost nothing to do with their wireless division.

FWIW, their wireline services account for about 7% of the company's operating income, or in other words, about $105 million dollars out of that $1.5 Billion monthly mentioned.

Do the math:
40000 people on strike. If they average $18 an hour, that's $720,000 an HOUR on the payroll ledger. Now, say they work 48 hours a week: $34.56 MILLION dollars a WEEK. 4 weeks in a month? $138.24 MILLION a month in PAYROLL ALONE.

If payroll is $33 MILLION more per month than their income, and pension, vacation, health and other benefits aren't included there either, nor are any other materials and such required by that division... things like devices, vehicles, training and so on... how can that part of the business survive?

So, basically, this is based only on what Chris Shelton said? There are no real details here on a swat team being called in. Maybe it did happen but this sounds like union propaganda here. Some verification by the "reporter" would go a long way here.