From time to time I’m going to post information about the pressures other unions are facing to accept significant reductions in benefits, pensions, and other hard-won rights and protections.
If we are going to successfully defend our own collective agreement, we need to know what other public and private-sector unions are up against.
For example, Verizon Communications is seeking major concessions from 45,000 unionized workers in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, citing a long-term drop in revenue and profits in its old-fashioned telephone business and intense competition in television and Internet services.
In the most aggressive set of contract demands the union says it has ever seen, the employer wants:
- employees to contribute to their health care premiums, ($1,300 – $3,000 for family coverage, depending on the plan)
- the ability to lay-off workers without severance
- to tie raises more closely to job performance and to deny annual raises to subpar performers
- to freeze pensions for current employees
- to eliminate traditional pensions for future workers
- to limit sick days to 5 a year
Source: NYT Online, July 29, 2011
