Showing posts with label Verizon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Verizon. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Press conference Tuesday to demand Verizon pay back the money it owes our schools

Verizon/DOE 20110829223556] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EsKXwhTy-s (Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan BP appointee to the PEP)
NEWS CONFERENCE 
11am, Tuesday, August 30th

Make Verizon Pay Back the Money it Made from a Fraud on our Schools and Settle a Fair Contract with its Workers

What:   Education advocates, labor unions, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and other elected officials will join together to demand Verizon pay back its ill-gotten gains from our schools and settle a fair contract with its workers.

When/Where: 11am, Tuesday, August 30th in front of the Municipal Building.

Background:

            On August 17th, the Mayor’s PEP approved a $120 million contract with Verizon.  According to the Special Investigator for the Schools, Richard Condon, Verizon knew about and profited from an overbilling fraud scheme[1].  Verizon’s direct profits in the scheme were at least $800,000, according to the investigator, but the PEP approved the contract anyway.

            The fight is not over: Verizon should pay back the money it made off of the scheme and make the schools whole through a restitution – and settle a fair contract with its workers.   This issue also deserves more scrutiny from the NYC Council, which Councilman Cabrera has promised.

            Verizon has contradicted itself on the schools contract, allegedly telling some members of the PEP and the media that it may pay back its proceeds from the scheme.  Verizon also sent a letter to the PEP denying its role in the fraud and falsely claiming that the Schools Investigator’s report did not say that Verizon was aware of the fraud. 

Verizon is demanding massive givebacks from its workers, including: freezing pensions for new and current workers; raising health care costs by thousands of dollars for current and retired workers; cutting benefits for workers injured on the job; and shipping more jobs overseas.

            Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s representative, Patrick Sullivan, was one of four PEP votes against approval of the controversial contract.  Borough President Stringer, CWA, education advocates and other elected officials (list in formation) will call on Verizon to pay back the money, make the schools whole, and settle a fair contract with its workers.  Please join us!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Patrick Sullivan to Verizon: When will you give our schools back our money? BE AT THE PEP Wed.

"Verizon has sent the PEP members a letter asking us to approve the contract.  It blames CWA for the campaign against the contract.  It attempts to completely misrepresent the SCI [Special Commissioner of Investigation] report which clearly states Verizon concealed billing information and knew of inappropriate arrangements.   Rather than CWA, it was SCI who asked that all funds be recovered from Verizon and that external auditors be brought in to examine Verizon's books."
Laura,
Special Commissioner for Investigation Condon recommended that the DOE require that all funds from the Lanham consultants be returned from Verizon.
When will you give our schools back our money?  We have severe budget cuts and we need those funds.
Have you opened your books to our auditors as he also asked?

Patrick Sullivan
Manhattan member,
Panel for Educational Policy
 GEM started this ball rolling less than 2 weeks ago by teaming the Verizon contract with the strike and lookee at what's happening. The CWA is coming out strong tomorrow and so is the activist ed community - all the groups are on board. Don't expect much press at a mid-Aug. PEP.

Verizon is feeling the heat. Verizon's Laura wrote a letter to all the PEP members and Patrick responded above.


Friday, August 12, 2011

A Midsummer Night's Scream - Picket PEP Over Verizon Contract/Support CWA Strike - Weds. Aug. 17, 5PM

Join BYNEE, Class Size Matters, CPE-CEP, Grassroots Education Movement, New York City Parents Union, New York Charter Parents Association, NYCC, NYCORE, S.E.E.D.S, Teachers Unite, Independent Community of Educators, The MANY, Teachers for a Just Contract (list in formation) this Weds at 5pm.

Verizon has admitted to overcharging us as a result of alleged fraud by a middleman but is not willing to make us whole. They will only negotiate and want their contract renewed first. - Patrick Sullivan


Wow, are these guys at Verizon crooks, stealing money out of the mouths of babes, all with the compliance of WalBloom and the PEP, which wiil vote to hand them piles of more money on Weds. Aug. 17.



Protest Verizon DOE Contract at PEP/Support Verizon Workers on Strike

On Wednesday, August 17, the Department of Education's Panel for Education Policy will vote on a $120 million two year contract with telecom giant Verizon to wire our schools.   There are at least five good reasons to strongly oppose this contract ( see below.)

At the same time the PEP will be voting on a spending plan that will sharply cut our school budgets - for the third year in a row - and lead to even larger classes.

Join us at the PEP meeting near City Hall to protest this immoral and possibly illegal contract. 
 Whether you can join us or not, please  send the message below to the members of the PEP.

What: Picket and Protest 
Where: Murry Bergtraum HS, 411 Pearl Street, Manhattan (4/5/6 or N/R to City Hall / Brooklyn Bridge)
When: Wed. August 17, 2011 at 5 PM

Why?  Verizon is shortchanging their own workers and stealing from schoolchildren!   Say no to more giveaways to private contractors and more wasted spending on technology while are class sizes are increasing! Tell the PEP to vote down the Verizon contract with the DOE!

Take a stand against the increasing portion of our education budget that is wasted on private contractors and for-profit vendors, like Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation.

Sponsored by:  BYNEE, Class Size Matters, CPE-CEP, Grassroots Education Movement, New York City Parents Union, New York Charter Parents Association, NYCC, NYCORE, S.E.E.D.S, Teachers Unite, Independent Community of Educators, The MANY, Teachers for a Just Contract (list in formation)  

And please send the following email to the PEP; feel free to change wording and/or add details about the conditions in your child’s school:

Dear PEP member:
Please vote no on the $120 million contract with Verizon. Here are five good reasons:  

1.    45,000 Verizon workers are currently on strike, as management has demanded a long list of concessions, cutting their health benefits, pensions, and sick time – givebacks amounting to $20,000 per worker. Meanwhile, the company has $100 billion in revenue, net profits of $6 billion, and Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company a $10 billion dividend. The top five company executives have been paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the last four years.  This is yet one more corporate attack on the middle class. Why should the city be contracting with such a greedy and unethical company?

2.    Verizon is seriously implicated in the recent scandal in which the Special Commissioner of Investigation found that a consultant named Ross Lanham in charge of school internet wiring stole $3.6 million dollars from the city  through a false billing scheme, and that Verizon facilitated this fraud.Though DOE admits that “Verizon is in discussion with the DOE regarding repaying of the overcharges,” the company has not yet agreed to pay back any of this money, and the case has been referred to the US attorney’s office for possible prosecution.   Why should DOE reward Verizon by paying the company more millions?

3.    In the same document in which the DOE outlines the contract, there are twenty other instances listed of suspicious or illegal behavior on the part of Verizon, triggering numerous investigations.

4.    All NYC public schools are already wired for the internet; but according to the DOE, this second round of wiring is for high-speed internet and hi-definition video  to facilitate the expansion of online learning and computerized testing.  This is occurring at the same time as budgets are being cut to the bone, schools are losing valuable programs, and class sizes are rising to the highest level in over a decade.  A quarter of our elementary schools are so overcrowded they had waiting lists for Kindergarten.  It is outrageous that in the midst of this budget crisis, the DOE should be spending $120 million for unnecessary technological upgrades when children do not have seats in their neighborhood schools.

5.    Finally, this contract with Verizon began on January 1, 2011, and DOE is only now asking for the PEP  to approve it “retroactively.”  But there is no allowance for retroactive contracts in state law, unless the chancellor finds that due to an emergency, it is necessary for “the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare” and provides a written justification.  This was never done in this case.  Thus, this contract with Verizon is likely illegal on the face of it.  

I                 I hope you will vote your conscience, and reject this outrageous contract, 

(                             (name, address)



Thanks, and please forward this message to others who care,




Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Verizon: Corporations Are People Too - Mitt Romney

Rank and file Teachers have been supporting the CWA strikers against Verizon.

Interesting article in Sept 2009 NY Times - Verizon wants customers to cancel land lines. Verizon paid NO federal taxes and Ivan Seidenberg makes $55,000 a day.

Verizon Boss Hangs Up on Landline Phone Business

Roll over in your grave, Alexander Graham Bell.


Here is a current article in the Times




Democracy Now covered the strike:  http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/11/verizon_workers_strike_over_full_scale

Video of GEM, NYCORE, Teachers Unite teachers supporting Verizon on picket line.




This is a letter that came through to a fellow GEM member from a striking mom...

Hi there. 

You probably don't know me.  I'm on strike with Communications Workers of America, against Verizon Communications.  I've been a technician in New York for over a decade and I'm a mother.  A lot of lies are being spread about us, about our union, and what our strike is about.  You should hear our side because things are hard for working families now, and getting harder.

            And I'm scared.  At the end of the month if we are still on strike, my family loses its health care.  My husband is out of work, and strike pay for a month is less than we made in a week.  We can't afford to go to the pediatrician with no health care, period.  Our last visit cost $305.  Just because we can't afford it doesn't mean we won't do it-like everyone else on the planet we'll just go further into debt.


            I'm sure as a parent you've had those moments when you realize just how much you adore your children, that you'd do anything for them, a feeling so strong you can't even put words to it.  Think about how you feel when they are threatened, bullied, or hurt.  That is how we feel every second on our picket lines, knowing we are fighting for them.  We want them to have health care and a stable home. But we also want them to have parents who are not so beat up by working faster and harder with no job security that when we get home at the end of the day, we have a little energy left.  Maybe even are in a good mood.  Wouldn't that be nice?

            My days go like this now: wake up before 6 to feed and change my 8 month old son, then go to the picket line.  I watch managers barely trained in the field drive my truck and use my tools to do my job.  When we rally and chant they drive right through us; 23 people have already reported being hit by vehicles on the picket lines; the first morning we were out I saw a manager hit my coworker in the leg with his car and an ambulance had to be called.  In 1989 a technician in New York was struck and killed right in front of where he had worked by a manager working as a scab.   His kids said good-bye to him one morning and never saw him again.

       We're out in the sun, the rain, the heat, the horrible New York humidity.  We didn't ask to go on strike, the company made demands so insulting we had no choice.

But what's it all for?  Ads are running in the papers saying we make $91,000 a year and have 4 weeks vacation.  Ads that imply it's our greed that is causing the strike.  I have worked 11 1/2 years for the company and never made that much, nor will I if I don't take voluntary overtime for 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week-but only if the company offers it.  That part kills me-the company shrinks the workforce so they have to offer overtime sometimes, then calls us greedy for taking it! 

Do people who are willing to work 12 hours a day deserve to make good money?  Do people who work in unheated manholes in January or up telephone poles in August deserve to bring home a good check to our families?  To do work that is dirty and dangerous and that keeps us away from our families for all our waking hours to me seems worth the company paying us well.   But I would say the same about the women and men who sit in call centers and offices who handle call after call, who are timed to the second and patrolled like chain-gangs in their cubicles.  And I'd guess you work pretty hard too, maybe too hard and you're exhausted and run down too.

And 4 weeks of vacation is only for those of us who are 15 years with the company, so that's not me for another 3 1/2 years thank you very much.

People also talk about "free medical" and "Cadillac insurance plans".  We don't live in France people!  We don't have money deducted from our paycheck, it's true.  But we pay co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance, out-of-network fees etc etc.  We already pay thousands of dollars a year for our families, and they want us to pay up to $6800 more.  If we all made $91k a year that wouldn't kill us, but we don't.   Most of the company isn't technicians-service reps and operators and call center workers make much less than us already.

But let's be honest, it's tough times, right?  Everyone is being cut back.  Well, not exactly everyone.  Verizon isn't having tough times at all-this year they already made 6 billion dollars.  And the year's not over!  Everyone knows that billionaires got bailouts and people are still getting laid off, foreclosed, and cut back.  Our bosses make money that is inconceivable.  Like $81 billion for former CEO Ivan Seidenberg.  Really?  $81 billion and you want me to pay 25% of my medical premiums?   That seems a tiny bit hypocritical.  When our bosses say "no one has the benefits you do! Why should you be special?" what they are really saying is "no wage worker has what you do!  Why do YOU deserve what WE have?" 

       Well I'm sorry if I look at my son in the morning and think he deserves the absolute best of everything in the world.  You'll have to forgive me that greedy impulse.

If a profitable company like Verizon can get the literally 100 concessions they want from us, who's next?  How will your family survive with what amounts to a 10% pay cut, if you already haven't taken it?  City workers and state workers are already getting choked by the budgets; corporation will be watching to see if Verizon can crush some of the last unions that have preserved a solid standard of living for their members.

We're not striking because we think we deserve more than other people, we want MORE PEOPLE TO HAVE WHAT WE HAVE, or BETTER.  But we can't get there by giving back.

  I'd rather be in a race to the top than a race to the bottom.  A win for us can only HELP your family.  We are in the richest country in the world whether it's a recession or not; no family should be worrying about their mortgage and no child should be without health care.

Ways you can help us:


* Tell your friends and family the truth about our struggle.
* If you see us picketing, give us a thumbs up, or a honk.  If it's a hot day, a bottle of water is nice or a snack.  You have no idea how much a smile and word of encouragement means after 8 hours of picketing in the August sun.
* Don't shop at Verizon Wireless if we're outside.  The unions aren't asking people to boycott or cancel their plans, just don't cross our line when we're there.


* Sign and circulate this letter to CEO Lowell McAdams <http://action.cwa-union.org/c/1153/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2657&tag=cwa-email:20110808-action-vzgreed> .


The last thing I'll say is, if you thought you could make the world a better place for your kids, would you do it?  Of course you would, you're already trying every day.  And so are we.

Thank you in advance. 


==============
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Hey Teachers: Support Striking Verizon Workers

One of the reasons the labor movement is in so much trouble is the lack of solidarity. The UFT/AFT sells the "union of professionals" line - as if we're closer to people who actually manage their professions than to other workers. Where do you think you stand in today's deskilling and degrading of teachers?

GEM and possibly other groups are gearing up for some support activities starting tomorrow afternoon at 5 PM. I may try to make it into the city if I can.

Verizon Workers are on Strike!
Teachers, Parents, Students, Community Members
Let’s show our support and join them on the picket line.
Their struggle is our struggle!
 Monday, August 8  5PM
140 West Street, Between Vesey and Barclay St.
Take the #3 to Park Place  or the A,C to Chambers St
Bring signs, banners, and energy!


Company Refuses to Bargain Seriously, Verizon Proposals Would Take Workers Back Decades

Washington, D.C. -- More than 45,000 workers are on strike today at Verizon Communications. Bargaining continues. Since bargaining began on June 22, Verizon has refused to move from a long list of concession demands. As the contract expired, nearly 100 concessionary company proposals remained on the table.
As a result, CWA and IBEW have decided to take the unprecedented step of striking until Verizon stops its Wisconsin-style tactics and starts bargaining seriously.
Even at the 11th hour, as contracts were set to expire, Verizon continued to seek to strip away 50 years of collective bargaining gains for middle class workers and their families.
CWA and IBEW members are prepared to return to work when management demonstrates the willingness to begin bargaining seriously for a fair agreement. If not, CWA and IBEW members and allies will continue the fight.
Verizon financials
  • 2011 annualized revenues are $108 billion and annualized net profits are $6 billion.
  • Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company and Vodaphone a $10 billion dividend.
  • Verizon’s top five executives received compensation of $258 million over the past four years.
The contract covers 45,000 members of CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers from New England to Virginia.