Despite Huge Profits ...Verizon Forces Layoff of Nearly 200 Workers

BOSTON - After earning strong profits and awarding large bonuses to its top executives, Verizon management is laying off 196 workers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island today. Six Verizon Business technicians were also laid off last week. The layoffs are part of 8,000 job cuts that Verizon announced in late July.

"Verizon obviously has no commitment to its workforce or to the communities we serve," said IBEW Local 2222 Business Manager and System Council T-6 chair Myles Calvey. "Instead of cutting jobs, it should work with communities to expand its FiOS service. Management should also allow union members an opportunity to work in its fast growing wireless business."

Verizon has "put up a wall" between its divisions and it uses that wall to discriminate against union members working in the older -- and less profitable -- landline side of the business.

Outraged about the layoffs, Verizon workers helped lead a huge rally in front of the company's New England headquarters last week.

Union officials then met with the company on October 6 in a last ditch attempt to save more jobs. Those talks resulted in management agreeing to change the seniority date of hire cut off from 2003 to 2006. That will save at least 62 workers jobs.

With the state unemployment rate at 9.1 percent, Verizon's unnecessary layoffs contribute to a growing jobs crisis in Massachusetts and across the country.

"There is plenty of work for us to do and there is simply no justification for these layoffs," added Calvey. "We need a national moratorium on layoffs to stop this kind of corporate greed. There's no excuse."

"No matter what your industry and union affiliation (or lack there of) the time to stop these Robber Barons from running us and our country into the ground is NOW!," said Dan Manning, a FiOS installation technician from Medway who was laid off today.