This video from the USA says about itself:
Bernie Sanders Stands With Striking Verizon Workers
13 April 2016
Bernie Sanders has once again joined striking workers on the picket lines. This time he’s joined 40,000K Verizon employees in their fight for fair wages and benefits. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola (ThinkTank), hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
“The influential New York transit workers union endorsed Bernie Sanders for president on Wednesday.
In an almost unanimous vote, Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents 42,000 workers, threw its weight behind the Vermont senator.
Later on the same day, Sanders spoke in support of Verizon workers on strike.
The Working Families Party posted to Facebook a video of Sanders’ speech at the picket line (which begins at around 22:00).
“We’re fighting a vicious corporation, but we’ve got a champion that’s fighting for us,” a strike leader said, introducing the presidential candidate. “Let’s hear it for Bernie Sanders!”
The crowd chanted “Bernie, Bernie!” as the self-described democratic socialist stood up on the podium.”
Read more here.
From Congressman Alan Grayson in the USA:
STRIKE – 40,000 Verizon workers went out on strike today. It’s the biggest strike in years. I salute their courage, and I support their effort to protect themselves against greedy management take-backs.
My parents, New York City schoolteachers, went out on strike frequently when I was growing up. There were two long strikes, one when I was ten and one when I was seventeen.
I was a sick child. I went to the hospital four times a week for treatment. During that long strike when I was ten years old, I didn’t know whether those treatments would continue. I didn’t know whether I would stay healthy, or fall terribly ill.
That’s a hard, hard thing for a ten-year-old to think about.
Now you know why universal healthcare is so important to me. …
The union paid for my health coverage when my parents were out on strike. That’s one reason why I’m alive to tell you this story today, forty years later.
Most of those teachers’ strikes were not about pay, but about educational standards. Our so-called political leaders wanted to boost the class size to 35. The teachers fought back the only way that they could – they walked out. Not to protect themselves, but to protect their students.
My mother felt so bad about her students missing school that she received special permission, from the union, to teach her students for free at a community center during the strike.
She and my dad and the other teachers stood together, they fought back, and they won. And a generation of public school students benefited from that. I am one of them.
If you left it up to the bosses, then every employee would be an unpaid intern. Or you would have to pay them for the privilege of working – they’d call it a “training fee,” or something like that. Most business owners couldn’t care less about creating good jobs with good pay – employees are a cost, and they work like hell to minimize that cost, in order to maximize their profit. Which is why Donald Trump loves to say “You’re Fired!” And why employees have to organize, organize, organize.
When I see my union brothers and sisters at Verizon go out on strike, I recognize how hard it will be for them and their families. It sure was for me. It takes bravery and determination to join together, lay your jobs on the line, and fight-fight-fight for better lives.
Verizon workers, I applaud you.
How many other public figures would have the guts to side with striking workers? How many other public figures even support the right to organize? This one does – and this one deserves your contribution of $10 today >>
Courage,
Rep. Alan Grayson
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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Thu Apr 14, 2016 9:09 am (PDT) . Posted by:
“raccoon” redwoodsaurus
BERNIE SANDERS JOINS VERIZON WORKERS ON PICKETS
He called Verizon “another major American corporation trying to destroy the
lives of working Americans.”
Video at http://tinyurl.com/h35rtxc
Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) boosted the cause of striking Verizon workers on Wednesday, joining them on a picket line in New York City and blasting the telecom giant in a sidewalk speech.
Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers on the East Coast went on strike early Wednesday morning after 10 months of negotiations with the company failed to produce a new contract. The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers unions represent the workers.
It’s the largest strike in the U.S. in four years, and it’s happening just as the presidential primaries come to New York
.
Sanders’ raucous speech aired live on cable news, giving Verizon a taste of the attention it may receive in the coming days. Sanders, a close ally of CWA who received the union’s endorsement, called Verizon “another major American corporation trying to destroy the lives of working Americans.”
“Verizon is one of the largest, most profitable corporations in this country,” Sanders said. “They want to outsource decent-paying jobs. They want to give their CEO $20 million a year.”
Verizon, which owns the The Huffington Post, said in a statement Wednesday that it had made “good faith efforts” at the bargaining table and offered wage increases, but “union leaders decided to call a strike rather than sit down and work on the issues that need to be resolved.”
The union says the company has refused to put layoff protections for newer employees into the contract and wants to be able to have technicians work far from home for up to two months at a time.
Sanders applauded the striking workers for having the “courage” to walk out.
“I know how hard it is, what a difficult decision it is to go out on strike. I know you’ve thought a whole lot about it, and I know your families will pay a price,” the Vermont independent said. “Today, you are standing up not just for justice for Verizon workers, you’re standing up for millions of Americans who don’t have a union.”
In a blog post on LinkedIn on Wednesday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam fired back at Sanders, saying the senator had “uninformed views” that were “contemptible.”
“Our objective in these negotiations is to preserve good jobs with competitive wages and excellent benefits while addressing the needs of our ever-changing business,” McAdam wrote. “All of our contract proposals currently on the table include wage increases, generous 401(k) matches and continued pension benefits. Contrary to Sen. Sanders’s contention, our proposals do not call for mass layoffs or shipping jobs overseas.”
Sanders has vocally backed organized labor in his years in Congress. It’s uncommon, though not unheard of, for presidential candidates to join striking workers in protest. Sanders, however, is no stranger to picket lines — or to labor disputes with Verizon, for that matter.
In 2003, he joined protesting workers in New England when they were locked in a contract fight with the company. As Paul Feeney, an IBEW shop steward, told HuffPost last year, employees “remember when Sanders stood up on the back of a pickup truck and addressed our members … And that means something to people.”
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Yesterday the CEO of Verizon said that I was “contemptible.” He doesn’t like that yesterday I walked the picket line with striking Verizon workers, or that I think Verizon needs to pay its fair share in taxes.
Verizon’s attack reminded me of what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in New York City in 1936:
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
“They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
Like FDR, I welcome the contempt of Verizon’s CEO. I welcome the hatred and contempt of every Wall Street banker, hedge fund manager, pharmaceutical lobbyist and fracking executive trying to stop our campaign.
They know how powerful we are when we stand together. That’s why I need to ask you directly.
If everyone who has signed up to support our campaign made a $2.70 contribution right now, it would ensure we have the resources we need to win New York’s primary on Tuesday night. Make yours here.
I visited FDR’s gravesite this week while I was campaigning in New York. I took the time to reflect on his presidency, and how he stood up to the powerful interests on Wall Street who wrecked the nation’s economy and sent our country spiraling into the Great Depression.
FDR thought big. When people said that Social Security was impossible, he defied them and created the safety net we have today. When people told him that he couldn’t rein in Wall Street greed, he signed the Glass-Steagall Act into law.
Today we are thinking big, and the billionaire class is telling us what we’re doing is impossible. People keep underestimating us, and we keep proving them wrong. Let’s show them again on Tuesday in New York’s primary.
Make a $2.70 contribution right now and we will have the resources we need to win New York’s primary on Tuesday night.
I’m going to be on stage for tonight’s Democratic debate in a few hours, and I know that with your support, we can win.
Nothing is impossible.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
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