CWA Union, Verizon Appeal to Congress on 3rd Day of Strike
August 09, 2011, 6:01 PM EDTBy Devin Banerjee
(Adds Verizon’s closing share price in final paragraph.)
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The Communications Workers of America, which represents 35,000 workers at Verizon Communications Inc. out on strike, appealed to Congress for support in the labor dispute.
“We ask you to write Verizon President Lowell McAdam and urge him to respect collective bargaining rights,” the union said in a letter today.
The CWA appealed to Congressional offices from districts in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions, where about 45,000 unionized workers began striking Sunday. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents about 12,500 additional Verizon workers on strike.
Verizon, the second-largest U.S. phone company, today also sent a letter to Congressional offices in affected districts as well as leaders in both houses of Congress.
“The world is changing,” the New York-based company said. “Verizon and its union-represented employees need to work together to adjust rules and policies that threaten to limit the company’s ability to compete in the broadband marketplace. This is hard, but it is doable.”
Verizon rose $1.17, or 3.5 percent, to $34.29 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares are down 4.2 percent this year. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index jumped 4.7 percent to 1,172.53, its biggest gain since March 2009, after tumbling 6.7 percent yesterday.
--Editors: Niamh Ring, Donna Alvarado
To contact the reporter on this story: Devin Banerjee in New York at dbanerjee2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net
