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Bernie Stands With Verizon Workers

26 Oct, 2015

Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator and candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, called out Verizon for illegally firing retail worker Bianca Cunningham and for its treatment of workers fighting for fair contracts during a surprise stop at a CWA rally outside a Times Square Verizon Wireless store on Monday.

CWA District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor said it is not unusual to find Sanders on a picket line, election or no election. "Last year, we were in a battle with FairPoint Communications and there was one elected official who joined us on the picket line time after time and that elected official was Bernie Sanders," Trainor said.

The Senator slammed the company for trying to shift costs to workers at the bargaining table. "All over this country, Verizon is a metaphor," Sanders told the crowd. "You've got corporate America making huge profits. Their CEOs get huge compensation packages and then with all of their money, what they do is they hire lawyers in order to make it harder for workers to survive in this country...What these companies do is use their power to cut wages, to cut healthcare benefits, to cut pensions."

39,000 Verizon workers up and down the East Coast are still working without a contract as the company continues to demand massive concessions at the bargaining table. At the same time, Verizon Wireless workers in Brooklyn, NY are bargaining their first contract. Management is refusing to negotiate better wages or working conditions.

"It is not acceptable to me that when workers form a union and negotiate for an entire year they can't yet get a contract. That's not what democracy is supposed to be about. That's what rotten labor law is about, and we're going to change that," Sanders said.

Watch it:

In a historic vote last year, 63 retail store workers at six Verizon Wireless stores in Brooklyn, N.Y., joined CWA, Bianca Cunningham led that organizing effort.

At this week's protest, Trainor brought Cunningham out to huge applause and chants of "Bring Bianca Back! Bring Bianca Back!" "Our chief bargainer, Bianca Cunningham, was caring for our members, doing her job as steward and this company fired her," Trainor said.

Cunningham said all she was trying to do, beside leading the fight to organize Verizon Wireless workers in Brooklyn, was to hold the company accountable.

From left: Bianca Cunningham, Sen. Bernie Sanders, CWA District 1 VP Dennis Trainor, and former CWA President Larry Cohen.

"Verizon claims they cannot give you a raise and protect your pensions because landline is a dying business. Meanwhile, at the Verizon Wireless bargaining table, they are refusing to make movement on wages, they are refusing to make any movement on anything and we're all making them millions of dollars. So, we ask the question, which is it, Verizon?" Cunningham said.

Cunningham said she hopes her Brooklyn Verizon Wireless coworkers learn to replace the fear with hope and the understanding that "the only way to fight corporate greed is through organizing."

Sanders spoke on the Rachel Maddow Show after the rally about why he stands with Verizon workers, saying that corporations pursue greater profits at the expense of the middle class.

Check out more pictures from the rally: