NEW YORK: A tentative deal between Verizon Communications Inc and leaders of striking unions includes 1,400 new jobs and pay raises topping 10 percent, the company and unions representing about 40,000 workers said on Monday, hoping to end a walkout that has lasted nearly seven weeks.
One analyst called the deal “very rich” for workers at Verizon, the No. 1 US wireless provider, which reached the tentative pact with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) on Friday last week. Details of the new four-year contract were disclosed on Monday.
The CWA said Verizon agreed to provide a 10.9 percent pay raise over four years, while Verizon put the increase at 10.5 percent. The CWA said both numbers are correct, with the union’s calculation including compound interest as subsequent raises are determined from the new base salary.
Nearly 40,000 network technicians and customer service representatives of the company’s Fios Internet, telephone and television services units walked off the job on April 13.
Striking workers would be back on the job today, the CWA said.
Joshua Freeman, a labor historian and professor at Queens College in New York, said he would call the contract a win for the union, while noting the increasing rarity of a strike of that size and length.
“These guys not only struck and survived, but actually came out of it with a pretty good contract,” Freeman said. “These days, that is a very unusual thing, to see that kind of walkout.”
The workers have been without a contract since the agreement expired in August last year — healthcare coverage ran out at the end of April.
In 2011, Verizon workers went on strike for two weeks after pay negotiations deadlocked.
The latest work stoppage stretched across states including New York, Massachusetts and Virginia. Verizon brought in thousands of temporary workers.
New York-based Verizon is to add 1,300 call-center jobs on the east coast and 100 new network technician jobs, Verizon spokesman Richard Young said.
It will withdraw proposed cuts to pensions, as well as reductions in accident and disability benefits, but the company won cost savings through changes to healthcare plans and limits on post-retirement health benefits.
If union members ratify the agreement, the new contract is to run until August 2019.
Members of local unions are to vote by mail, at mass membership meetings and at walk-in balloting meetings, with all the results due back to the CWA by June 17, said Bob Master, assistant to the vice president at the CWA.
