Verizon is a very strong company. It earned 19 billion dollars in profit during the last four years. That's right, 19 billion dollars in profit during the last four years of world-wide financial collapse. Pretty damn good, but hardly unique. The fact is that the corporate class as a whole has been raking in profits at record levels during this period of pain and suffering for most ordinary Americans.
And what have they done with all this money? Well, not much really, certainly not much in the way of investment and growth that would add employees and help the economy recover. No, they're just sitting on the money.
One thing Verizon is doing a little differently, though, is they are more greedily than most trying to increase their huge profits by stealing from their own employees. Verizon is demanding cuts in pension and health care benefits which would cost the average employee 5,000 dollars a year. This would give Verizon another 1 billion dollars in profit, which they would simply sit on while the country's economy worsens and withers.
This has precipitated a break-down in contract negotiations covering 45,000 IBEW and CWA union workers. This is just what a faltering and sagging recovery doesn't need, another mass of hard working folks suddenly not earning a paycheck. This is a message Verizon apparently hasn't gotten.
Maybe they need to hear it from their customers.
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