Our office has received several calls questioning the company’s right to change work schedules in different work groups. For example, in the outside forces Verizon has notified many, if not all technicians that were scheduled Sunday and Monday, that they will be working Tuesday through Saturday next week and non-scheduled on Sunday and Monday because of the snow storm.The company can do this according to the contract. The contract states in Article 25 section 2 " When the company assigns a Category l, II,III,A or B to work on a day on which no tour has previously been scheduled, the employee's scheduled work time on another day of the same normal week may be reduced by a corresponding amount, provided he is notified of the change prior to 5:00pm of the second calendar day preceding the day of the added assignment or the day of the decreased assignment whichever is earlier: We think they are overreacting. Twenty inches of snow in February is the same as twenty inches of snow in December.
This is an update on the Article 35's.The canvas process has completed and the company is in the process of notifying those members who selected and qualified for a reassignment to other jobs.The second EISP offer has closed and those taking the EISP will be leaving the payroll January 24th.
There are still approximately 90 members who did not take an EISP and who did not return a canvas sheet or did return the sheet but did not qualify for the selection they made.Since all the job vacancies have not been filled the Union has requested the company make a second offer of the remaining jobs to these members in seniority order.The company now has stated they are not adequately staffed to survey the members but if any of the 90 employees would like to express interest in either a CST or COT job in West Virginia they can call Angela Sposa,Verizon Labor Relations at 804-772-1134. This informal canvas is not a contractual requirement so the company has stated that the jobs will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.
As noted earlier in this process the removal of these 470 members will cause the company to reshuffle the workforce moving some technicians to different work locations and changing their job functions.Today the company notified the UNION that they will be moving technicians from Construction to FIOS.The company has solicited volunteers over the past month but the number of volunteers is insufficient to meet their needs. The company has refused to move members from Construction who have an NCS date after August 2003 and their reason for not moving these techs should be crystal clear.Their intent is not to spend money training technicians who are the targets of future surpluses. We must continue to fight corporate greed and Verizon’s pandering to Wall street at our expense. Get involved in the mobilization activities.
In mid January the West Virginia Public Service Commission will be holding critical hearings to determine whether to accept or block the deal that will allow Verizon to sell its phone lines to Frontier Communications. This deal will be a disaster for our members and for consumers in West Virginia. Similar deals in Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire have proved to be a mistake. CWA will be holding a big rally to Stop the Sale on Sunday January 10th at The Culture Center in Charleston, WV (two days before the hearings). We are asking our members from other states to attend to support our members and the consumers in WV. If this deal succeeds Verizon can make the same kind of deal in parts of Virginia and Maryland. The Local will be getting a bus if we have enough volunteers. We need to know by Monday January 4, if you plan on going. We will furnish lunch and dinner, refreshments. The bus would leave Annandale at 7:30 am and return around 10:30pm. The trip will be on your on time. You can volunteer by calling the Local office at (703)-256-2200.
CWA has started an ad campaign to let the public know about Verizon's intentions to layoff. Click on the link below to see the ad. Newspapers it is running in our area are the Londoun Times Mirror and the Fauquier Times Democrat on Wednesday, December 23 and the Falls Church New Press on Thursday December 24. The ad ran in the Winchester Star this past Friday, December 18. It is running in Newspapers across the state.
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