UPDATED 13:09 EDT / AUGUST 08 2011

Mobile Industry Gets Bad for Workers: Verizon Strikes, Robot Replacements and Suicide

Verizon is not doing quite well, as just last week they lost the infringement lawsuit filed against them by Active Video, in which they have to pay $115 million in damages.

Now they are faced with even a bigger problem when workers, which include telephone field technicians, call center workers and cable installers from Massachusetts to Virginia, decided on Sunday that they were calling an immediate strike because of a lack of progress in contract negotiations.

“Since bargaining began on June 22, Verizon has refused to move from a long list of concession demands,” the union said in its post-midnight statement. “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.”

Lowell McAdam, who took over as Verizon’s chief executive last week said: “It’s no secret that the wireline business has experienced a 10-year decline in our customer base and in profitability, despite investing billions in improving our network, processes and systems.  We have taken many steps to offset this decline, including reducing our workforce, increasing the amount our management employees contribute to their benefits, and even selling some of our Wireline properties.  We have arrived at the point where we must make additional hard decisions.”

The strike is not only affecting the company but the consumers as well.  One customer narrated how his visit from Verizon managers became pleasantly weird as he was able to, first time, chat with Verizon employees who were surprisingly polite but his problem with his phone wire wasn’t fixed because of the strike.  There is still no news as to how long the strike will last.  Employees have the right to demand for the things that they believe are theirs and the strike won’t like end until they get what they deserve.

When it comes to the mobile industry, rising demand for connected devices and services is putting pressure on companies and their workers alike.  How a corporation handles this growth at the internal level is just as important as its business decisions on the consumer-facing side of things.  After a string of suicides as mounting tension around worker conditions, Foxconn announced that it would be replacing thousands of labor-intensive human jobs with robots.

On a lighter note, not everyone at Verizon is on strike, as employees and customers of Verizon in Tampa Bay, Florida came together and donated more than 15,000 pounds of food and more than $8,000 in contributions to Feeding America Tampa Bay as well as volunteered more than 150 hours, from April 1 through June 30.  This is part of Verizon’s participation in the Kindness 2011 campaign, a community effort created to bring food, blood donations and toys throughout the year to people in need in the Tampa Bay area.

“We appreciate the efforts put forth by Verizon and the important message they delivered to customers as they conducted business over those three months,” said Pat Rogers, executive director, Feeding America Tampa Bay. “Awareness of hunger in our community is just as important as the donations made by Verizon’s customers and employees. Unfortunately, the need for hunger relief does not go away. These efforts certainly helped, however, and we are thankful for the partnership.”

“I am both proud of our employees and touched by the partnership our customers formed with us to address this important issue in our community,” said Jeanmarie Milla, Verizon’s Florida region operations president. “We have a strong employee base of over 10,000 who care deeply about the community we live in. We asked them to mobilize for Feeding America Tampa Bay to fight hunger close to home, and they responded — as they always do.”


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