ThinkProgress Logo

Stories tagged with “Verizon”

LGBT

Pressure Continues To Mount Against Boy Scouts Of America And Its Donors

By Zack Ford on Sep 19, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Scout leader Greg Bourke was fired this week for being gay.

Since the Boy Scouts of America announced it was sticking with its anti-gay policy in July, without any explanation as to why it was the “best policy for the organization,” pressure has increased against the group as well as its donors. In addition to a new steady stream of Eagle Scouts returning their badges, churches and charities have begun to pull their funding. This week, another Boy Scout Leader was fired for being gay in Kentucky and is petitioning for reinstatement.

The American Independent has published a new report identifying the BSA’s largest corporate donors, many of which continue to give despite having policies against giving to organizations that discriminate based on sexual orientation. In particular, the Intel corporation gave about $700,000 to the Boy Scouts in 2010, almost half of which went to troops and councils directly connected to the Mormon Church. The Church of Latter Day Saints sponsors nearly 38,000 scouting units — 34 percent of all units nationwide — and has said it would abandon that support if gays and lesbians were allowed to serve as scout leaders. The intrepid son-of-two-moms advocate Zach Wahls has launched a petition calling on Intel, which has a 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, to end its anti-gay giving.

Other companies that have given to BSA include Verizon ($318,000 in 2010) as well as big banks Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, and Bank of America, each of which gave more than $100,000:

Economy

Verizon To Lay Off 1,700 Workers After Paying CEO $22 Million Last Year

By Travis Waldron on Jun 4, 2012 at 2:35 pm

America’s largest wireless service provider plans to cut 1,700 jobs by offering its technicians and call center employees buyouts. Verizon Communications announced last week that it would reduce its nationwide workforce by 1 percent, and if enough workers don’t accept the buyouts, it will resort to involuntary layoffs.

Verizon paid chief executive Lowell C. McAdam more than $22.5 million in 2011, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of executive compensation. The company has paid its top five executives more than $350 million in the last five years, according to the Communications Workers of America, the union that deals most directly with Verizon:

More than half of McAdam’s compensation package came from “Performance Awards,” according to the WSJ analysis. In 2011, the company’s shareholders saw an 18.8 percent increase in the value of their returns. Workers, however, have not shared in those gains. Verizon eliminated 26,000 jobs over a two-year period in 2008 and 2009 — including 16,000 jobs in 2009 alone — and laid off roughly 13,000 more in 2010.

At the same time, Verizon has demanded sizable concessions from workers in its negotiations with unions, asking for the elimination of the company’s pension plan, increases in health care premiums, and extra leeway to outsource jobs, according to a release from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

NEWS FLASH

Verizon Creates Transgender Employment Protections | Verizon is the latest company to announce it is expanding its employment non-discrimination policy to include “gender identity or expression,” which will protect transgender workers in addition to those who are already protected based on sexual orientation. The change is a victory for the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), which owns stock in Verizon and has filed shareholder resolutions in favor of the protections for the past five years. The UUA has successfully worked with several other companies to make their policies trans-inclusive, including Walmart, The Home Depot, Travelers Insurance, Procter & Gamble, Family Dollar, Lowe’s, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

NEWS FLASH

Verizon Threatens To Cut Off Health Benefits Of Striking Workers If Strike Doesn’t Stop By End Of The Month | Bloomberg News is reporting that Verizon has told its 45,000 striking workers that if they don’t return to work by the end of the month, their health care benefits will be completely cut off. The company already ended their pension benefits on Aug. 6 when their contract had expired. “This is the first time in the history of our negotiations with Verizon that they’ve threatened this much,” said Bill Huber, a business manager at the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers. “It’s a tactic they’re using to try to scare the people.”

By Zaid Jilani on Aug 17, 2011 at 11:55 am

Economy

VIDEO: Striking Verizon Workers Provide Replacements With Safety Advice The Company Never Gave Them

By Zaid Jilani on Aug 16, 2011 at 5:05 pm

Nearly 45,000 Verizon workers have been striking for nine days, as the company continues to demand huge worker concessions. Since these workers have gone on strike, the company has replaced them with temporary workers.

Now, a video has emerged of a group of striking Verizon workers assisting these scab workers with safety training that the company apparently did not provide them. In the following clip, a man from the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (IBEW) Local 2321 Danvers Garage explains to some of the replacement workers how to safely get up an electric pole without being hurt. (Warning: The video contains some expletives):

ThinkProgress contacted IBEW Local 2321 Danvers Garage to interview them about the situation. Business Manager Ed Starr explained that, of the replacement workers being brought on the job, “a majority of contractors…they’re performing work in every capacity unsafely.” Starr said he knows of Verizon workers from sales departments, IT, and other desk jobs who are being asked to do work on outside infrastructure that they are not trained to work with. Upon request from the workers out of fear of retaliation, ThinkProgress will not name the workers in the video but can confirm they are from IBEW Local 2321 Danvers Garage.

Yglesias

Miracles of the Private Sector

By Matthew Yglesias on Jun 25, 2010 at 12:14 pm

Verizon logo

For a while, I had a Verizon wireless broadband device. A few months ago, I decided I didn’t need it any more and called them up to cancel. I was expecting some phone company hell for my trouble, but it actually went fine. Until, that is, I got my next bill from them. What’s especially odd about it is that it’s a bill for zero dollars and zero cents. In other words, they know I don’t owe them money, but they’re billing me anyway. And now it happens every month. And it’s hard to know how to get out of this situation, because I don’t have a Verizon Wireless phone number or account number anymore thanks to the fact that I don’t have an account with them and don’t owe them any money.

This is the same company that sticks a flier in my mailbox about once a week urging me to sign up for their FIOS package deals. These actually sound like really good deals to me and I would gladly sign up except FIOS isn’t available in my building. Or in my neighborhood. Or, indeed, anywhere in the District of Columbia.

I bring this up because this kind of petty waste in a public sector context would become grist for some sweeping political conclusions. Really sweeping. Not like “this agency should improve its management processes” or even the more general “in large bureaucratic organizations, lots of minor stuff goes wrong all the time.” Instead, it’d be like “this is why we have to privatize everything” or “obviously we can cut taxes and balance the budget by eliminating waste.”

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up