Verizon 2008 Shareholder Meeting - Union Members Protest Verizon's Divisive Approach to Managing Employees

May 5, 2008

 

The Verizon 2008 shareholders' meeting was held on May 1st in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Verizon officials contend they chose the Lincoln location to showcase their new wireless service center which opened last year.  Many union officials believe the company's real intention was to hold the meeting as far away as possible from most of its members.   It that was Verizon's plan, to hold the meeting more than a thousand miles from its members, it didn't work!

     

Current and retired union members from CWA and the IBEW, some from as far away as New York and Massachusetts, and many community supporters, leafleted shareholders outside The Cornhusker, with a message of concern about the divisive direction that CEO Ivan Seidenberg is taking the company.  Verizon management is persistently and aggressively building a wall to keep its wireless and large business operations separate from wireline, interfering with the freedom of its workers to unite in the CWA and IBEW. 

 

Dozens of union members carried several boxes containing thousands of proxy votes into the shareholder meeting with a message to “Separate the Verizon Chair and CEO jobs” and of “No Confidence in the Verizon Board of Directors.”  Currently, Ivan Seidenberg is both the CEO and Chairman positions.  “How can he be his own boss?” asked Craig Fields, a Central Office tech and member from IBEW Local 2321.  “We believe that an independent Board Chair is particularly appropriate at Verizon.  For too many years the compensation of Verizon’s senior executives has been disconnected from returns to shareholders.  The chairman should be an independent director.”   

 

Although all shareholder proposals were defeated, the proposal to prohibit the same person from being both CEO and chairman of the board got the most support with 20 percent of the shareholders voting in favor.  In other voting, 8.6 percent voted in favor of prohibiting executives from receiving stock options and 17 percent voted for the gender identity non-discrimination policy.

 

             

In District 2, union members, including new and part time workers, held informational pickets at their work sites throughout the day.   Many of them walked the picket line between tours and during their lunch hours.  With contract negotiations starting up again this summer, employees are sending their message to the company:

 

• A Fair contract in August that protects health care
• Every Verizon job a union job
• Stop the union-busting in Wireless and Business 

Preparing for a possible strike, Verizon has already told managers in both the East and West to be ready to cancel their vacation plans in August and September and sent letters to retired managers asking them to work.

 

Union members are letting Verizon know that we’ll be ready to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes!