Verizon Workers Protest on Mineola Boulevard

Verizon workers have somewhat of a fondness for the slogan of their company – “Can you hear me now?” – especially when you consider the fondness extends to its use as a rallying cry for the past nine days after a workers’ strike was called over an impasse at the negotiation table for a new contract.

Highly visible in New York, picket lines have not been limited to Manhattan and the outer boroughs, however, with workers appearing in Long Island, albeit in smaller numbers. The strike includes Verizon and line workers who are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IEBW) and Communication Workers of America unions.

Five such CWA workers showed up at the corner of Mineola Boulevard and Hillside Avenue in Mineola Monday afternoon to demonstrate against work being done across the street from the Nassau County Police .

“We’re not asking for anything. We just want a fair contract and to be able to keep living like we are on Long Island,” David Santos, a Verizon worker for the past 14 years who has gone to 20 protests since the strike began.

“Where they go, we follow them,” he said.

Slung over Santos’s shoulder was a high-definition camcorder and tripod, which he had been using to film the workers on the east side of Mineola Boulevard, whom he said were either “contractors or managers” working on the equipment.

When asked what he was looking for, Santos said he was  taping “little things, just a lot of stuff that they shouldn’t be doing” like safety procedures. He had no intention of bringing the footage to his superiors at Verizon or distributing the video, only shooting for personal reasons.

Workers are claiming that the new contracts are unfair since the company is profitable.

“Basically they put 100 things on the table that they want to take away from us that they’ve had all along,” Santos said.

While holidays “are not a big deal, ” among the ‘100 things’ are employees’ health care, job security and a revamped pension plan which would do away with plans for new hires ot freeze the amount for current workers like Santos.

“My pension’s worth $50,000. That’s nothing, you can’t retire on that,” Santos said, taking another drag on a cigarette as the group’s hour protesting at the site was up and they began walking back to their cars. “They got an injunction,” he said, referring of a ruling the company received limiting the amount of time workers can protest at a site.

While negotiations have reportedly continued between Verizon and the various union heads, Santos expressed his doubts about the negotiations.

“Out of the 20 people that I followed, I haven’t seen anybody fix anything yet,” he said. “They don’t seem to want to bargain. It seems like they want to break the union.”