NEW YORK — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders cheered on striking Verizon workers Wednesday after 39,000 landline and cable employees walked off the job.
Sanders told workers at a picket line in Brooklyn they displayed courage by standing up to the telecommunications giant.
“I know your families are going to pay a price,” Sanders shouted. “On behalf of every worker in America who is facing the same kind of pressure, thank you for what you’re doing. We’re going to win this thing!”
Sanders’ rival, Hillary Clinton, said in a statement earlier Wednesday she was “disappointed” that negotiations had broken down between Verizon and its unions.
“Verizon should come back to the bargaining table with a fair offer for their workers,” Clinton said. “To preserve and grow America’s middle class, we need to protect good wages and benefits, including retirement security.”
The two striking unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, represent installers, customer service employees, repairmen and other service workers in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., for Verizon’s wireline business, which provides fixed-line phone services and FiOS Internet service.
About 40 striking Verizon workers began picketing outside the company’s Masonic Street property in Northampton Wednesday as part of the coordinated protest across the East Coast.
The group in Northampton joined hundreds of other Verizon workers elsewhere in western Massachusetts, including Pittsfield, Springfield, North Adams and Westfield who are protesting stalled contract talks and labor terms put forth by the company.
“This is not an easy task we’re asking people to do, but if we want to have a future here in the company, we’re going to have to sacrifice in the short term,” John Rowley Sr., business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2324, said Wednesday.
The local union represents 341 Verizon workers in western Massachusetts, all of whom went on strike Wednesday, Rowley said. He said the strikes are expected to continue for an undetermined time and occur at places that put the most economic pressure on the company. The strikers are being joined by other Verizon workers represented by the Communications Workers of America Local 1400.
“Long gone are the days of standing in front of a central office or a garage,” Rowley said. “We’re going to be fanning out to different locations. We’re going to be on strike today and every day until the company comes back to the table with reasonable proposals.”
The workers picketing in Northampton declined to comment to the news media under orders from union officials. Many were wearing signs that read “Fighting Corporate Greed at Verizon Wireless,” outside Verizon’s office that houses clerical staff and technicians.
Verizon spokesman Rich Young said the company was disappointed by the strike. He said Verizon has trained thousands of nonunion workers to fill in for striking workers and “we will be there for our customers.”
But some customers said the strike was affecting them.
Jennifer Aguirre, 27, said she and her husband had an appointment scheduled for Wednesday to install cable and Internet at their home in Washington. Her husband called to confirm and was told that systems were down and the appointment was canceled.
“We’re kind of stuck, waiting to see what’s going to happen,” Aguirre said. She said Verizon is the couple’s only option for home Internet service.
Keith Purce, president of CWA Local 1101 in New York City, said the unions have been without a contract for eight months.
Between 300 and 400 union members walked a picket line outside the company’s office in downtown Albany, where workers set up an inflatable “greedy pig” and rat.
In Philadelphia, about a hundred striking workers took to the streets near the company’s regional headquarters and chanted, “Scabs, go home!” at nonunion replacement workers.
The unions say Verizon wants to freeze pensions, make layoffs easier and rely more on contract workers. The company has said that health care issues need to be addressed for retirees and current workers because medical costs have grown and that it wants “greater flexibility” to manage its workers.
Verizon also is pushing to eliminate a rule that would prevent employees from working away from home for extended periods of time. In a television ad, the unions said the company was trying to “force employees to accept a contract sending their jobs to other parts of the country and even overseas.”
“The main issues are job security and that they want to move workers miles and miles away,” said Isaac Collazo, a Verizon employee who has worked replacing underground cables in New York City for nearly 19 years.
But Young said the unions’ talk about offshoring jobs and cutting jobs is “absolute nonsense.”
“These contracts have provisions that were put in place decades ago. … They need to take a look at where the business stands in 2016,” he said.
Some 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike for about two weeks in August 2011.
Verizon Communications Inc. has a total workforce of more than 177,000 employees.
Staff writer Dan Crowley contributed local reporting.
Associated Press writers Ula Ilnytzky and Tali Arbel in New York, Shawn Marsh in Trenton, New Jersey, and Chris Carola in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.